Life and Trust: A Master Class in Experience Design (Part 4)

The sad story shown on the landing page of Life and Trust, 4/20/2025

There was going to be a different version of this article. One focused on the brilliance of scene control and space transformation, told through the silent choreography of golden-masked stagehands. That piece may still come. But this one, this one is about a different kind of mastery. A more painful one. The kind you only learn when something extraordinary falters. However, recent developments have necessitated a shift in focus. Less than 48 hours ago, Emursive, the company behind Life and Trust, announced the cancellation of the remainder of its shows and the refunding of all future ticket sales. As of this writing, no official statement has been released explaining the sudden closure. Given the show's innovative design and the talent involved, we are left to interpret the silence and extract lessons from the unwritten spaces.​

The creative force behind Life and Trust was formidable. Emursive, renowned for producing the groundbreaking Sleep No More, continued its tradition of immersive storytelling with this production. The Kuperman Brothers, Jeff and Rick, served as co-directors and choreographers, bringing their extensive experience from stage and screen, including their Tony Award-winning choreography for The Outsiders . Their work is characterized by a seamless blend of movement and narrative, creating a visceral experience for the audience.​

Ilana Gilovich, the Chief Storyteller at Emursive, played a pivotal role in shaping the narrative landscape of Life and Trust. With a Ph.D. in English Literature (Theatre and Performance) from Columbia University, her academic and creative pursuits converge to craft stories that resonate on multiple levels. Her contributions ensured that the immersive experience was not only visually captivating but also rich in thematic depth.

Despite the show’s artistic successes, its premature closure underscores a critical lesson for creators of immersive experiences and LARPs alike: you still have to run the business. In the instance of Life and Trust future tickets were refunded. No official reason given. At the time of writing, we’re left with silence. And that silence weighs heavy. Because Life and Trust was not a incredibly flawed production. Quite the opposite—it was exceptional. Beautifully executed, narratively tight, visually stunning, logistically elegant. It hit nearly every mark that immersive creators dream of. And still, it ended.

Art is transformative. A powerful story, a compelling character, a room that makes someone feel something—these things matter deeply. But when you scale that artistry up—when your production stretches across multiple floors, a sprawling camp, or a complex multi-day timeline—vision alone is not enough. Good art can’t save you from the very real demands of budget spreadsheets, tax forms, and human resource planning. If you want to build worlds, you have to fund them. Sustain them. Staff them. Sell them.

 This is a trap that LARP, especially in the American scene, falls into often. Events are underfunded by default. Most organizers come from within the hobby. They’re passionate, creative, and often overworked. They know how to write scenes and balance mechanics. They know how to run a game weekend. But they’ve never been taught how to build a multi-year budget model, run payroll, or design a marketing funnel. And if they’ve never run a business, it’s easy to assume that the art will carry the weight. That if the experience is good enough, the rest will follow.

But it doesn’t.

Large-scale productions, even volunteer-driven ones, run on cash flow. LARPs need money for insurance, permits, props, food, facilities, staff stipends, printing, software, storage, travel, and infrastructure. The moment you move past a group of friends in a field, you are running an enterprise. If you don’t treat it that way, the foundation will eventually crack. And when it does, it often takes the art down with it.

Staffing, too, becomes a business decision. Not just about who’s available or passionate, but about roles, workload distribution, expectations, and burnout mitigation. Someone needs to be tracking time. Someone needs to manage the books. Someone needs to make sure taxes are filed, and someone needs to understand how to build systems that let the creative leads actually do the creative work.

Marketing isn’t just posting on social media or tossing up a hype trailer a few weeks before opening day. Have you mapped your Customer Value Journey? Do you know how your players find your game, how you educate them, how you convert them from interested to invested? Have you budgeted for ads, email campaigns, partnerships, or long-term community engagement? If you don’t have a funnel, you don’t have a plan—you have hope. And hope is a fragile foundation.

This isn’t the glamorous part of creation. But it is what keeps the work alive. Do you own your brand? Are your names, logos, taglines, and systems protected with trademarks or copyrights? Are your publications properly licensed, documented, and attributed? Is your creative IP shielded from unauthorized reuse—not just morally, but legally? Have you filed your business with your state, registered for the right permits, or set up the insurance that would keep you covered if something went wrong during a weekend event? Have you even looked at the insurance you need, let alone priced it out or ensured it aligns with your scope of activities?

None of this is particularly romantic. But when something happens—and something will happen—these are the things that decide whether you survive it.

Because if you’re running your operation with no protections in place, without understanding the legal and financial standards required to operate at scale, then what you’re doing isn’t bold or innovative. It’s reckless. It’s the Icarus story, not in metaphor, but in practice: flying toward the sun not because of ambition, but because you never checked whether the wings were stitched with wax or sinew. When your work melts under scrutiny, when disputes arise, or when the government steps in to ask questions you don’t have answers for, that’s not dramatic irony. It’s a lesson in neglect.

Legal infrastructure is the scaffolding that holds your creation up when the wind shifts. It doesn’t diminish your vision—it protects it. It makes sure that the stories you tell, the mechanics you design, the community you build, and the spaces you shape don’t evaporate the first time a contract goes sideways, a copyright is challenged, or someone breaks an ankle and asks who’s liable. For every LARP organizer who thinks, “We’re just a group of friends,” or “We’ll deal with that later,” there’s a lesson waiting. And it’s usually not a gentle one. You don’t need to be a lawyer to run a game—but you do need to understand that once money changes hands, once publishing begins, once people travel to interact with your brand, you’re running something that exists in a legal framework. It’s not about fear—it’s about care. If the world you’re building matters to you, then so should the steps it takes to keep it safe, legitimate, and yours.

The irony isn’t lost on me that Life and Trust—a story centered on Faustian bargains, wealth, and the cost of ambition—quietly closed to all outside perspective under the same weight it portrayed. A show about the price of success, undone perhaps by the very same truth. That no matter how beautiful your vision is, if the money dries up or the logistics fail, the curtain comes down. That’s the hardest lesson to learn in this work. That building something incredible is only half the battle. The other half is the paperwork. The filings. The contracts. The invoices. The marketing strategy. The emergency fund. The backend tools. The off-season sustainability plan. It’s the least romantic part of immersive design—and the most important.

To the team behind Life and Trust, I offer nothing but admiration. The show was a masterpiece. Its closure is not a failure; it’s a tragedy of scale, a reminder of how fragile even the strongest structures can be without enough scaffolding underneath.

To the LARP community and immersive designers still building, still dreaming: take this lesson seriously. Don’t build your dreams on top of chaos. Learn the business. Fund the foundation. Design the logistics as carefully as you design the story.

You can’t keep the world alive if the world you’re building it in collapses.