Nominations are opening soon!
Nominations are opening soon!
To nominate, follow the link and have your say.
Read on below for some top tips to make the most of your nominations.
Shortlists will be published Wednesday 12th February 2025.
The winners were revealed on Saturday 1st March at the 2025 UK Larp Awards.
The 2025 Larp Awards Categories are:
- Small Larp of the year – less than 30 players
- Medium Larp of the year – 30 – 100 players
- Large Larp of the year – Over 100 players
- International Larp of the year – Games which are based outside the UK.
- Family Larp of the Year – Games which make effort to include all ages in the action.
- New Larp of the year – Games launched after 15th Feb 2023
- Club Larp of the year – Local groups, running regular games of varying size and length, for their club members.
- Grassroots Larp of the Year – Games with great access for new players
- Player-run or Sanctioned Larp of the Year – Player-run or Sanctioned Larp of the Year
- Award for Accessibility in Larp – going the extra mile to support people of varying mental and/or physical abilities and encouraging inclusivity
- Larp Media of the Year – Blogs, Vlogs, Videos and Podcasts.
- Larp Producer of the Year – Foam/Latex
- Larp Producer of the Year – Leather
- Larp Producer of the Year – Costume
- Larp caterer of the year – Who is the legend in your lunchtime?
- In-field retailer of the year – Outstanding service in sun, wind or rain.
- On-line Larp Retailer of the Year – (nominations for Amazon and eBay will be ignored, nominations for Wish will be laughed at)
- Creature Costume or Puppet of the year – If you can tell us who made (or wore) it and where this was, as well as the creature’s name, it helps to gather partial nominations for the same creation.
- Bard of the Year – Musicians, magicians, singers, dancers, and storytellers. Any entertainers who demonstrate their skills at Larp.
- NPC of the year – A Non Player Character who made a significant impression.
Giving in and out of character names, rank or guild, as well as where they were played, helps collate other partial nominations. - Event Crew Member of the Year – An invaluable member of a team involved in running a Larp game.
- Unsung Hero Award – For someone who does lots without mention.
- Life Time Achievement – Lifetime Achievement will not be awarded to the same individual twice. The exception being that one year where it was awarded to “Everyone”, because, being honest, it was a unique achievement we all made that year!
Previous winners can be found Here.
Photography Categories will be announced shortly.
Any photo, of any prop, costume or Larp which ran (or was made) after 14th Feb 2024 was eligible to enter.
The place to view pictures is under construction.
making Nominations
- You do not need to nominate in every category. If you didn’t do a Large larp, that’s fine, we don’t mind, just leave the box blank. Blank boxes aren’t shown or counted and are quicker to process than an apology about how you aren’t able to put something more meaningful.
- We see the nominations as a list of everyone’s answers and we have to click around a bit to check who you mean when you say “Same as before” or “See above”. Your comment will be also overlooked if the nominee makes the shortlist because it has no reference in the appropriate list.
- Check whether you are nominating in the right category. Read the category title and the rider accompanying. If you have a question we are usually happy to help guide you because, while it can be a chuckle, we really do have to disqualify a person for not being an event. It also makes us sad to disqualify what was undoubtedly an incredible weekend from “Sanctioned Event” because it was run by the main game’s team. That nomination might have made a difference to the shortlist if it had be placed – for example – in “Medium Larp” or “Club” instead. A message to your game team about what categories they are eligible for should be a welcome one.
- We won’t mark you on the spelling, grammar or punctuation in your nominations but we won’t necessarily know how to spell your friend’s name either, try to get it right for them. When nominating a character it helps a lot if you know the player’s name. It’s not always essential but inconsistencies can lead to your nominations for someone amazing going astray.
- Include the name of the Larp as well as the event because we can’t always be sure whether you meant the Moot 1/Lions/Wolves/Black Company faction at Curious Pastimes or Lorien Trust (for example).
- We LOVE to read your comments. Honestly think about whether they are actually helpful to the case you are putting forward though. Comments which are felt to be damaging to the nominated body’s chances will not be put forward to the judges. E.G. “because X told me to nominate them” makes X look a bit desperate and makes you look reluctant to stand by your nomination.
- Not adding comments is fine too. If you want to comment but can’t decide what to write, you can save your nomination form and come back to it later.
- Comments which stretch to more than 2 paragraphs will be cropped/edited (if used) because the judge’s document is already more than 20 pages!
- We’re not sure how to feel about second hand love. For example, nominations along the themes of “My friends keeps raving about it so it must be good” and “I didn’t actually go but it looked awesome and now I wish I did…” Does that mean it wasn’t actually good enough to make the effort for? Was it too expensive? Did tickets sell out? Use them with care, in the knowledge that your comment is unlikely to make the judges eyes; and if it did, would it help the case you are making?
- We really, really mean it when we say we’re not awarding Lifetime Achievement to the same person twice. If you nominate someone on the list of previous Lifetime Achievement winners (here’s a link to them, like there is in the nominations survey), then you owe us £1…
How the LARP awards work
There are lots of categories.
You can nominate the things you want to in the relevant categories, ideally with your reasons for doing so (we went over this just above).
When the nomination period closes we count the nominations in each category.
The five nominees in each category that receive the most nominations form the short list.
In the case of a tie the comments provided are used as a tie breaker.
Once the short lists are established we create “The Document of Power”, which contains 2 or 3 of your most glowing comments for each nomination (this is over 30 pages long!).
This document is then circulated to the judging panel, for their perusal.
The judging panel is made up of previous LARP award winners. Judges pick first second and third in each category which receive 5 points 3 points and 2 points respectively.
Judges are not permitted to vote in any category where it is deemed that they have a vested interest (for example if a judge’s LARP is nominated in Small LARP of the Year they are ineligible to vote in that category).
When the voting period closes, the points totals are added up and the nominee with the highest total wins. In the case of a tie the head judge has the casting vote.
Overall LARP of the year is picked from the winners of the small, medium and large LARP of the year categories.
There are no short lists for unsung hero or life time achievement categories – the winners are selected independently based on your nominations.
For the photo categories the people’s choice award is decided by which photo gets most ‘likes’.
The judge’s choice awards is based on a variety of photographic criteria which can be seen here – http://larpcon.co.uk/…/2019/06/Photo-Judging-Criteria.docx.