I was only eight years old in 2011, but I distinctly remember being a fan of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. My favourite shows included Austin & Ally, Good Luck Charlie and The Next Step. All of these shows shared a similar theme of teenagers navigating drama and complicated family dynamics that occasionally dragged on for multiple episodes.
One 2011 episode of Good Luck Charlie stuck with me in particular. The plot was typical, the main character, Teddy, was seeing a potential love interest. As usual, it chugged along with Teddy being invited on a date. The episode ended with her date bringing her to a live-action role-play (LARP) event. The show portrayed LARPing as a stereotypical “nerdy guy” activity, depicting it as something exclusive to hyperactive teenage boys running around the park in homemade costumes.
In the early 2010s, the media frequently associated LARPing with men and attached a negative connotation to the hobby. Movies and television episodes often shamed and shunned participants, using the community as both the punchline and joke.
LARPing is defined by participants’ physical and mental absorption in a storyline or story world, played out in a specified location during a fixed time period. Unlike the damaging portrayal in most early 2010s media, LARPing is a well-organized community based on having fun and supporting one another.
That was how I found myself in a field in the middle of nowhere at the end of July in the sweltering summer heat surrounded by hundreds of people from all different backgrounds. Like many others present at the event, I shrouded myself in a flowy skirt, a shirt with billowing sleeves and donned my hennin — a cone-shaped hat commonly worn by 15th century aristocratic women — for the 2026 Cooks Creek Medieval Feast and Festival from July 24 to 26.
LARPing is considered a hobby with hundreds of thousands of participants from around the globe gathering in one place to participate in a wide range of events. Cooks Creek events consisted of jousting, music in the cathedral, a market, puppet shows, a large feast and demonstrations from the Historical Armored Combat Sports Association and the Valour Historical European Martial Arts Academy, with some of these events running all weekend while others ran on only some days.
LARP is not just for hyperactive teenage boys, despite the media’s portrayal. LARPing is for everyone, and I mean everyone. I met doctors who were clothed in monster masks, friends wearing almost identical hennins to mine, older community members, people from Norway and Australia who were jousting in the competition and also my boss at the Manitoban.
LARPing creates community. I had the pleasure of interacting with the world’s oldest jouster, both in medieval history and in present-day, 80-year-old Darrell Bossley. Sir Darrell prefers to ride horses rather than to walk anywhere. This retired blacksmith and self-declared lover of adrenaline sports has a long history of loving and being around horses. Sir Darrell proves that it’s never too late to dive into your passions and hobbies.
LARP is special in the way it creates communities, bringing childhood passions to the forefront as people discuss medieval facts and characters, watch some jousting and enjoy some really good food.
LARP allows an escape from reality that other things don’t allow for completely. Next time a medieval festival is in your neck of the woods, I suggest you go, not just for the community, but for the fun times of running around in a costume you normally wouldn’t wear.
