The Next Year

Odraz 2011

Friends and colleagues,

on behalf of the civic association Mad Fairy, artists from Prague and experts from Pardubice we would like to present you our vision of the next year Odraz conference. We have decided to unite to make next year high-quality project useful for everyone.

First we would like to present the team for next year Odraz.

Program will be done by David “Daysir” Wagner, Kristýna “Darien” Obdrlíková and Slaven “Tete” Elčić. They prepare whole conception of program and find lecturers to fill it up. Organizational background of the event provide Roman “Gordhart” Čech and Jan “Newman” Novák. Whole event will be shield by the civic association Mad Fairy.

Leader of this project will be Jindřich “Estanor” Mašek. Now we would like to introduce you the conception of the Odraz 2011.

We believe that Odraz conference was established to make larps in Czech Republic official and to allow the exchange of ideas and experiences of organizers and players of larps. Both of these goals we consider important. In Czech Republic had been some meetings of organizers before Odraz was estabilished but these events had never been official and systematic. We would like to bring these activities on the next years Odraz and give them place there.

We would like to change some priorities of subjects of Odraz, but it depends on the lecturers and participants how it will work.

We would like to invite directly some new people to participate on Odraz and bring some almost unknown organizers there. We believe that new ideas should be searched in the new organizers and they should be supported in their activities.

Main part of program will be held in three program lines with 5 main topics: Larps of the year 2010, Larps planned for the year 2011, history of Czech larp, practical guide to organization and theory. Here is what these topics should be about.

Larps of the year 2010 is the topic based on retrospective evaluation of games made in 2010. Lecturer should focus on the way of preparing of the game, what tools have been used, for whom the game was designed and what they think about the result of their work. Organizers will present their “know-how” and share with others mechanisms used in the game and their experiences.

Larps of the year 2011 should have two goals. Firstly organizer can introduce his project and second goal is the revelation of his intended new methods and plans about this game. Presentations in this program line should not be only advertisements. Organizer should present his intentions about the game and his expectations about them. Last but not least should be the possibility to ask others for advice with some problem. Discussion should be important part of lectures in this program line.

History of Czech larp should not be a general summarization of information about Czech larps. Lectures in this program line should be focused on specific old events which established some basic rules used in Czech larp till today. There should be presentations of some almost unknown old games. Goal of this topic is to find what was successful on these games and inspire organizers in their next activities.

Practical guide for organization is focused on lectures and workshops trying to make complex guide how to prepare organizational background of the event. We hope to make real guide useful for every new organizer and for every new event. This guide should be distributed in digital form on the internet.

Theory should be different a little than on other Odraz conferences. This topic is becoming the place for collecting of the most interesting lectures of all topics. This part will be smaller then before and focused on practical topics related to every parts of game from rules to pedagogy and psycho-hygiene. We would like to concentrate theory to the work of a player in the game.

Now, we would like to introduce you planned structure of the conference. One lecture should be on 80 minutes and there should be pauses between them about 10 minutes. In case of difficult topics and workshops is possible to use 160 minutes. Lectures should not be only presentations but there should be more discussions and workshops. We would like to try a new system of opponent opinions presented like a part of the lecture.

At the end there are two questions not decided yet – English program line and off-program. If there will not be enough foreign participants interested in Odraz, there will not be English program line there. If someone will be interested in having an English lecture, we can give him space of course. Off-program will be reduced. We would like to meet you on lectures but in case you will be not interested, there will be board games available for you.

Location of Odraz 2011 is not settled yet for sure but there are some possible places (Castle Nový Stránov near Mladá Boleslav or recreation center TESLA Horní Bradlo). Place should be easy accessible from all over Czech Republic. Catering should be provided by local restaurants.

We would like to get financial support for the event to be able to have discounts for students and lecturers.

We hope we create a conference to shift larp in Czech Republic forward again.

Thank you for your attention.

Mad Fairy, o.s.

Odraz Itinerant

The Odraz conference is since its conception an itinerant conference. If you intend to take it upon yourself and prepare the next year of the conference, please send us an e-mail at pr@odraz.org.
We will gladly relay all our know-how and experience gained during the previous years  and offer our total support.