So! I’m finally officially done unpacking from Brandywine and have enough bandwidth to talk about things. (Am I done with laundry? No but don’t pay any attention to that.) Overall it was an incredibly fun experience, though not without the growing pains of any first-year event.
So to start: The Brandywine Festival (aka Hobbit Camp) happened a couple weeks ago in Kentucky, and it was the first ever official, endorsed by Middle Earth Enterprises, Hobbit LARP. We got unlucky with one day of heavy rain during setup, but otherwise we were frolicking in green rolling fields of morning dew and sharing food and drink and stories in the early October sun. I was pretty intimidated going into this, having never LARPed before, and while I’d planned on going with a couple good friends, as a safety net, they had to cancel due to a family emergency and I found myself an unexpectedly solo hobbit. But I very happily and quickly found myself adopted by some discord buddies (the event discord for this was very active and very welcoming) and had a fun time hanging out with everyone.
There were a fair amount of issues with site logistics, but for the most part, things that were problems at the start of the event had been mostly solved by the end, so while I had plenty to say to the event-runners in the post-event survey, I’m also confident in their ability to address those issues for future years.
But despite the problems, once I’d made it through the somewhat-harrowing process of getting my site setup, I don’t think there was a single moment where I had a bad time. The attendees were very much my people—crafty, handy, generous, friendly nerds. There was an official plot happening about giant spiders, bandits, rangers, and even elves in the woods around the festival, which was super fun, but there was also an amazing volume of events put together by attendee hobbits. There was a barter-only night market (which is where my butter bells and paper dragon went, btw), a lantern parade with a custom song written for it, a talent show, jam-tastings, homebrew contests, tea parties, life drawings, and all manner of other crafts and quests happening all over. At any point you could wander into the main festival tent and find several dozen hobbits relaxing at tables and drawing or painting or sewing or spinning or whatever. My people, you guys.
I’m not affiliated with Brandywine in any way, so this is just me saying my piece as an attendee. It was not without its flaws but it was also a phenomenally generous, welcoming community, and if it was happening again next week I would be there.
As it stands, it’s happening next year—tickets are going to be $400, and will go on sale on November 10. They are capping ticket sales, so I would not wait super long if you’re wanting to go a-frolicking with us fellow hobbits. I’ll share some kind of link when we get one.
The photos in this post were taken by Sarah Scruggs and are used with her permission. I was too busy adventuring to take many pictures.
