To sign-up for Halat hisar, go to the Otavan opisto website and fill the form. Don’t be confused by the way it’s framed as a course. That’s just the way our partners at Otavan opisto prefer to refer to the larp.

The sign-up for Halat hisar 2016 will stay open until Monday March 21st. After that we will choose 35 Finnish-speaking and 10 foreign (non-Finnish, non-Palestinian) participants.The sign-up and selection for the Palestinian participants traveling from outside Finland will be announced later.

Player Selection

We will choose the players based on the sign-up forms with an emphasis on diversity: We wish to have a good ratio of new players and experienced larpers, a healthy gender and age balance, and foreign participants from as many different countries as possible.

We strongly encourage young people (18-25 years) and people without previous larp experience to sign up. When making choices between people in the same categories regarding gender, age, nationality or other qualifiers, we will make the selection randomly. To take part in Halat hisar, you’ll have to be at least 18 years old during the game (June 16-19, 2016).

Participants who already played the 2013 run are welcome to sign up as well.

Inclusion and a Warning

We strive to make Halat hisar an inclusive game where everybody will feel welcome regardless of their gender, sexuality, ethnicity or whether they are cis or gender-queer. However, conservative Christian fundamentalists are an important faction in the game, and this means there will be some in-game homophobia. Off-game we don’t tolerate it. Most LGBT characters will probably prefer to stay in closet.

There will also be rough scenes such as detentions and interrogations, and you should expect to face at least verbal abuse. However, we will provide safety mechanics that allow you to opt out from any situation that doesn’t work for you as a player.

Practical

The players should be at the venue on Thursday night, as we start workshops on Friday morning. The event will end by Sunday evening. The dates are June 16-19, 2016.

The game will cost 75 € if you want to sleep in a bed, and 45 € if you choose the option of sleeping on a dormitory floor. The fee will be paid onsite in cash to the venue. Both categories include food.

Those who participate in the larp will receive a questionnaire for casting purposes after the selection.

If you want to check out the website of the 2013 run of Halat hisar, it’s here. It features background material for the alternate history world of Halat hisar. We will tune it for the 2016 edition, but the broad outline is the same.

If you have any questions, please contact us: Kaisa Kangas (kaisa.kangas@helsinki.fi) and Juhana Pettersson(jlp@iki.fi).

The sign-up for Halat hisar 2016 will open on Monday, March 7th and stay open until Monday March 21st. After that we will choose 35 Finnish-speaking and 10 foreign (non-Finnish, non-Palestinian) participants.The sign-up and selection for the Palestinian participants traveling from outside Finland will be announced later. To sign for the game, you will need to fill in a form on the webpages of our venue, Otavan opisto. We will provide more information and a link on Monday.

Player Selection

We will choose the players based on the sign-up forms with an emphasis on diversity: We wish to have a good ratio of new players and experienced larpers, a healthy gender and age balance, and foreign participants from as many different countries as possible.

We strongly encourage young people (18-25 years) and people without previous larp experience to sign up. When making choices between people in the same categories regarding gender, age, nationality or other qualifiers, we will make the selection randomly. To take part in Halat hisar, you’ll have to be at least 18 years old during the game (June 16-19, 2016).

Participants who already played the 2013 run are welcome to sign up as well.

Inclusion and a Warning

We strive to make Halat hisar an inclusive game where everybody will feel welcome regardless of their gender, sexuality, ethnicity or whether they are cis or gender-queer. However, conservative Christian fundamentalists are an important faction in the game, and this means there will be some in-game homophobia. Off-game we don’t tolerate it. Most LGBT characters will probably prefer to stay in closet.

There will also be rough scenes such as detentions and interrogations, and you should expect to face at least verbal abuse. However, we will provide safety mechanics that allow you to opt out from any situation that doesn’t work for you as a player.

Practical

The players should be at the venue on Thursday night, as we start workshops on Friday morning. The event will end by Sunday evening. The dates are June 16-19, 2016.

The game will cost 75 € if you want to sleep in a bed, and 45 € if you choose the option of sleeping on a dormitory floor. The fee will be paid onsite in cash to the venue. Both categories include food.

Those who participate in the larp will receive a questionnaire for casting purposes after the selection.

If you want to check out the website of the 2013 run of Halat hisar, it’s here. It features background material for the alternate history world of Halat hisar. We will tune it for the 2016 edition, but the broad outline is the same.

If you have any questions, please contact us: Kaisa Kangas (kaisa.kangas@helsinki.fi) and Juhana Pettersson (jlp@iki.fi).

The Palestinian-Finnish larp Halat hisar will be organized again next summer. Our aim is to recreate the political conditions Palestinians live under in Finland. The larp takes place in the present day, in an alternate world where Finns live under occupation.

The characters are students and staff, as well as journalists and foreign activists, at the University of Helsinki in the Occupied Finnish Territories. They live through their day, going to class, working and dealing with the challenges presented by the occupying forces.

Practical

The game will be held 16th – 19th of June, 2016. The venue is Otavan opisto, an educational institution near Mikkeli in Finland. Otavan opisto has a history of larp collaborations and is the site of the X-Con conference for larp organizers.

16th – 19th of June is a busy weekend for larp. The Danish-Swedish larp The Solution is also happening then, and is definitely something we recommend in case you’re not attending our game. Find out more on their website.

Sign up for Halat hisar 2016 will open in early 2016, and we will post more material about the larp here as the game draws closer. You can also join the larp’s Facebook group here.

If you wish to contact the organizers, send email to Kaisa Kangas (kaisa.kangas@helsinki.fi) or Juhana Pettersson (jlp@iki.fi).

2013

Halat hisar was originally run in 2013 in Parkano, Finland, as well as a smaller test game at the roleplaying festival Ropecon. The website of the original larp is here, and we’ve also published a documentation book about it, downloadable for free here. The photographer Tuomas Puikkonen has a wonderful gallery of images from the larp, here.

The 2016 game will feature the same design, but the venue is different, and we’ve taken the opportunity to improve and tweak the game based on our experiences and changes in the political situation both in Palestine and in Finland.

The 2016 run of Halat hisar was made possible by the support of the Kone Foundation.

The Kone Foundation has given the Halat hisar larp project a significant grant which makes it possible for us to run a revised version of the larp in the summer of 2016. The foundation has a reputation for supporting new types of culture.

You can read their rundown of the project here in English and here in Finnish.