I never cease to be amazed at how some tabletop RPGers have a near endless pool of bile to direct at LARPers.
So, LARPer's look silly in funny costumes running around the woods waving padded swords at people in monster costumes? How silly do you look sitting around a table rolling funny dice and talking about "attacks of opportunity" while moving little miniatures around a mat. If there was a video of a typical D&D session floating around the web, it would get just as much scorn, from other people.
LARPers are "weird" and "strange" and you don't like them one bit, although you've never played in a LARP and never will? How do you think many people think about D&D as "weird" or far worse words.
Really, LARPing and Tabletop are both roleplaying, and they are both perfectly valid, fun, and enjoyable. Is paying $50 for a weekend a three or four times a year any different than paying $40 for the newest WotC release every month or two that you may never even use in your game (or use very rarely), or buying loads of minis?
Do you wonder why some LARP's charge $50 or more for a weekend? Well, renting a large campsite (typically an entire Boy Scout/Girl Scout/4-H camp for a weekend) isn't cheap, they either charge at least $25 a head, or they might charge a fixed amount that with your typical attendance comes to about $25 or $30 per person. Then you've got to pay for props, costumes and weapons, so that's some more money per-person. Cover the operating costs of the LARP (printer ink, paper for item tags & character/NPC sheets, ect), then there is the actual insurance fee (while they have very few injuries, campsites and common sense says you better have insurance in case someone gets in an accident). These costs easily run to $40+. If you are actually trying to make a living off this (most LARP's I know are run strictly for the love of the game, people don't get into this to get rich, folks), or heavily promote your larp, or have royalties to pay to a parent organization that can drive the cost up too.
I don't know how that one larp works, but if you're wondering how . Here's how NERO handles combat like that (and our combat is much like that, except there are numbers going along with all those weapons and spells to say what's going on).
When you swing a weapon, you also call out a short phrase saying how much damage and the type (Normal/Silver/Magic) the weapon is doing, as spells, racial abilities and skills increase the amount and type of call. A basic longsword is "2 Normal" which you call as you swing, while the best fighters in the game swing "20 Magic" or greater. If you block that weapon with your own, or duck out of the way, then it doesn't hit, if it hits you without you blocking it, then it doesn't affect you.
Spells are represented by little "packets", small pouches of cloth filled with birdseed and closed with a rubber band. You say a short phrase to represent spellcasting and let everybody know what you cast, then throw the packet, and it if hits someone, they take the spell. If someone casts Lightning Bolt (for example), they'll go "I call forth a Lightning Bolt, 10". If it hits, they take 10 points of damage. Healing spells do the same in reverse ("I calll upon the Earth to Cure Light Wounds, 5" for example). Spells other than direct damage exist, but they clearly say what their effect is. It's a fairly short spell list where the effects are pretty intuitive, so everybody knows what all the spells do.
Each character has a number of body points (HP essentially), a normal starting human fighter would have 8 body, for example. Armor grants you extra HP, which can be repaired after the fight without healing magic, but Necromancy and Poison ignore. A decent suit of leather armor (like what a decent new player might have) is 10 points. Thus, your starting fighter with a suit of leather armor (and you have to actually be wearing the armor, just like you have to wear a costume), would have 6 Body/10 Armor. You don't die at -10, you stop at -1 and bleed to death for a minute, you have that long for somebody to use the First Aid skill or a Curing spell/potion, or for somebody to finish you off with a coup de grace (which is placing your weapon on the victim, and saying "Killing Blow 1, Killing Blow 2, Killing Blow 3" with nobody stopping you). So, your new character takes a Magic Missile spell for 5 points of damage, then somebody runs by and hits him with a sword twice for 4 each, for a total of 8, so he's down to 4 Body/0 Armor, not healthy. You have to keep track of who's hitting you and for how much, and there is something of an honor system involved, but it's remarkably effective actually.
Really, it may seem complex, but try explaining D&D combat to somebody who's never played a tabletop RPG and only seen a short video of people sitting around a table rolling dice and moving minis. LARP's are no more complex, "weird" or anything unwholesome than tabletop games. Personally, I think they're also every bit as fun, and the experiences they both provide are so distinctly different that they don't overlap.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
I said it smelled like a scam to me and that I was suspicious of the set up. If you choose to take my suspicions as accusations, the onus is on you to provide the “financial books" of the larps and a comprehensive list of their leader’s associates, if you feel they are so “on the level”. And I would be VERY intrested in actual numbers since i have only recieved verbal run arounds about costs when it comes to these very matters. 
