For the past five years or so, I've maintained a personal list of all the dates of events in the Washington and Baltimore Metropolitan area, so that I could schedule games. Over the years, I've had a lot of people contribute to this and a lot of people ask me for the information. This list is unofficial, and it is entirely possible for it to get out of synch or be wrong. But it is "usually reliable" because I have to be able to use it. I've recently added two Google Calendars, which mirror the Events and Social Columns on the Blood. You can subscribe to them on your own Google Calendar - click on the links below.

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The Big List of our Dates (BLOOD)

For the past five years or so, I've maintained a personal list of all the dates of events in the Washington and Baltimore Metropolitan area, so that I could schedule games. Over the years, I've had a lot of people contribute to this and a lot of people ask me for the information.

This list is unofficial, and it is entirely possible for it to get out of synch or be wrong. But it is "usually reliable" because I have to be able to use it. I've recently added two Google Calendars, which mirror the Events and Social Columns on the Blood. You can subscribe to them on your own Google Calendar - click on the links below.

BLOOD - 2008 - Events
BLOOD - 2007 - Events
BLOOD Google - Events
BLOOD Google - Social

Now available through Google Calendar - add the BLOOD lists directly to your Calendar

Subscribe through XML or iCal

BLOOD - 2007 List   
BLOOD Google - Events  
BLOOD Google - Social

Some Past Years

The Big List of Dates - 2006

The Big List of Dates - 2005

The Big List of Dates - 2004

The Big List of Dates - 2003

The Color Codes

Are explained in boxes at the bottom.

Private Events

Not infrequently people will tell me "I'm scheduling a party on that date, but I don't want to put it out on the web." This sort of thing I list as "Private Event" generally with some term I think is appropriate to denote the region. If it appears it means that it is something I would possibly choose to schedule around. That doesn't mean you have to. I'm not trying to set rules, just pass along information - it is a date that may prove problematic - your mileage may vary. As a general rule of thumb, you can estimate that I feel that the 1936/1948 Community would lose 6-8 players, at least.

If you e-mail me to ask what a private event is, I'll pass your e-mail along to whoever is running it, and they can respond if they want to. I may or may not be able to give a snap appraisal of how likely it is to affect you, depending on what I know about your event and player base. Any advice given in this regard is just that - advice - nothing more.

Some events that are listed are private anyway, but the person listing them didn't care if folks knew. This is particularly common with Weddings, Specialty Games, etc.

What I list

Bear in mind that this is a list I maintain for the use of my games and groups. It isn't the LARPA Calendar, which is a much better guide to games in general. I list Pagan events, and BDSM/Leather events to which I may lose Co-GMs or a substantial number of potential players. If you make suggestions about other classes of events to include, I may consider including them, but this isn't a community calendar, it's a scheduling resource. I tend NOT to include events that I think are only likely to take away two or three people, and that tends to include almost all performances by people who belong to performing groups. This is not a comment on the validity or quality of such performances - they just don't constitute a major draw-off of players in most cases.

Have something you think I should include? e-mail gordon@vialarp.org