DR:TX Ticket Updates
Howdy Vados!
As we get ready for our upcoming season, I want to share some important updates to our ticket prices for Season 7.
In our tradition of radical trust and transparency, I want to give you some advanced notice of changes to pricing structure for our upcoming season. We’ve held off an increase for several years now, but as our license structure has changed and site costs continue to rise, we need to take action to keep our game possible.
Starting with our September DR:TX event, RED SKIES AT MORNING, we will be implementing the following new prices for tickets to our DR:TX events:
Ticket Pricing for Season 7
Standard Casting - $100
This is the general admission ticket to a DR:TX event and requires four hours (4) of NPC time. You’ll earn XP for each of your active characters with an Advanced Membership, or a character of your choice.
New Player Ticket - $0
Our first game tickets for folks just setting out for their wasteland experience are always FREE! Come try out Dystopia Rising Live and see what the hype is about!
Sponsorship Ticket - $100
This ticket is for those that would like to help out those experiencing financial hardship that may not be able to attend an event otherwise. You’ll earn 200 CAPs for the purchase and be able to donate a ticket to another player.
Max Casting - $80
This discounted ticket requires six hours (6) of NPC time but comes at a discounted price. This is a limited quantity ticket, and is available first come, first served.
NPC Opt Out - $125
This limited quantity ticket has no required NPC shift, so you can just focus on playing your characters in the wasteland. This ticket sells out quickly, so make sure you plan time to purchase on the first day of ticket sales!
Luxury Opt Out (NPC & Clean Up) - $250
This limited quantity ticket includes all three bonus XP, no required NPC shift, and no required camp cleanup. This is a luxury minded ticket, perfect for travelers with an early flight or for folks who can’t stay for camp cleanup.
Full NPC Casting -$0
Our full-time NPC shift means you get to help us craft the stories of the weekend as a dangerous zombie, a cunning merchant, or a lovable survivor in our corner of the wasteland. If you volunteer at least 12 hours of NPC time, you’ll earn game XP for your active characters!
Extra XP - $15 each
You can purchase additional XP for your characters, up to three (3) for each event you attend. If you have an Advanced Membership, this grants XP to all three of your active character slots!
DR:TX Guides receive a $25 discount for each event they volunteer!
season passes
Starting with Season 7, will be offering new options for Season Passes. Most of our costs each season are caught up in the reservation of the campsite for the year, taxes, and license fees, and these are all due near the start of our season so it can be rough. Your support with a Season Ticket means you not only get to save a bit of money on your attendance during the season but enables our game to survive the summer and these upfront costs more easily in the future.
We will have three options for Season Passes, and each tier includes a fun collectible token of our appreciation, awarded at your first event of the season.
Regular Season Pass - $700
You receive a Standard Casting ticket for each game in the season. This is an $800 value, meaning you effectively get one '“free” ticket for the season.
Deluxe Season Pass - $1000
You receive an NPC Opt Out ticket for each game in the season, guaranteed in advance, along with 10 bonus XP to assign how you choose (a $150 value), within the usual 3 per game limit. This limited quantity ticket has no required NPC shift, so you can just focus on playing your characters in the wasteland.
This Deluxe Season Pass means you will always have an Opt Out ticket without needing to wait for tickets to go on sale or needing to worry about missing your chance to get one of the limited spots each game.
Luxury Season Pass - $1750
You receive a Luxury Opt Out Ticket for each game in the season, guaranteed. This limited quantity ticket includes all three bonus XP, no required NPC shift, and no required camp cleanup, including for any Premiere events we run.
This Luxury Season Pass means you will always have a Luxury Opt Out ticket without needing to wait for tickets to go on sale or needing to worry about missing your chance to get one of the limited spots each game.
If you are unable to attend one of the games included in your Season Pass, you will still receive credit for attending that event as a non-attending player, with all of the XP normally included with that Pass.
The VALUE of larp
Let’s be clear: LARP is not a business that makes anyone rich.
This is truly a labor of love, and I’m proud of the stories we get to share with our friends. I have a full-time job, and I’m certainly not trying to survive off of the meager profits of running DR:TX. I love investing back into new props for our games, and my only goal for this business is to simply ever break even. But it costs money to keep this game going, and the simple truth is that our costs continue to go up.
This year, our license structure has changed in some dramatic ways. While the license fee for each ticket has gone down slightly, we’ve lost the ability to earn revenue from Advanced Memberships. On top of this new deficit, we’ve had some contract changes with Camp Bluebonnet that increase our costs, and we continue to have all the normal slowly rising expenses of things like storing props, purchasing item cards and makeup, renting a truck, hosting a web site, paying taxes to the government, and paying our monthly license fee. We’ve managed to do this all so far on a shoestring budget, but we need to make some changes to keep our game healthy for the future.
For $100 for a weekend, you get:
2 nights in either climate controlled cabins, or open air cabins and tents. If you try to rent a simple tenting space at the nearby national park, it’ll cost you $50 a night for a plot of ground and you’ll still need to provide your own tent and gear!
Showers, potable water, an industrial kitchen, A/C and heat, clear and clean trails to explore, and beautiful sights at an amazing Girl Scout campsite. Compared to some more primitive DR game sites, Bluebonnet is a palace!
30 hours of a bespoke, immersive live action experience, with zombies, raiders, critters, and stores galore. A trip to the movie theater with drinks and snacks can start to approach the price of an entire weekend experience!
Cool NPC props, costumes, makeup to help you have interesting and varied threats over a weekend. We have a huge collection of boffers, accessories, and props, and we strive to keep adding new and interesting additions to the collection!
An amazing and vibrant community of friends, and memories that will never be matched - period.
LARP is more than just dressing up and playing pretend — it’s a fun and powerful way to connect with others, express creativity, and build confidence. When you step into a character in the wasteland and enter our story, you get to experience new perspectives, work together with others, and solve challenges in a hands-on, exciting way. You get to have agency to make big changes, get involved in immersive stories, and be a big damn hero. It’s a chance to unplug from the real world, make lasting friendships, and be part of something truly memorable.
I’ve found so much value in our hobby during my time with DR:TX, and I’ve definitely made friendships that will last a lifetime. I’ve been both a player, a guide, a storyteller, and now a game runner. I’ve attended weddings for players of our game and seen families grow, traveled the country with my fellow Vados, met so many incredibly dedicated and creative players, and I’ve seen people really be able to become their authentic selves through our game. This is an incredible hobby, and I’m honored to have told some amazing stories over the years. This ticket adjustment will mean that we can keep telling these kinds of stories and creating a space for our shared hobby to continue.
I hope you will join us as we tell new stories in the zombie apocalypse with Dystopia Rising Live, and I appreciate your continued support of Dystopia Rising Texas.
See you soon, Vados!
— Jonathan