https://boingboing.net/2018/08/28/a-visit-to-epic-nerd-camp.html
Epic Nerd Camp is a 5-day summer camp for adults in Pennsylvania's Poconos Mountains that celebrates cosplay, LARPing, RPGs, Quidditch, escape rooms, swordplay, wizarding, and many other special interests popular among geeks. The Washington Post's Karen Heller paid a visit:
ENC was the brainchild of Kim Kjessler, 37, a former dolphin trainer, and her 26-year-old chef husband, Bentley. “I designed a camp that I wanted to go to,” she said in the Arts and Crafts shed, where campers created wizard staffs, leather apothecary cuffs and Edvard Munch-like portraits of a “Last Jedi” porg.
She was inspired by gaming gatherings such as BlizzCon, where she met Bentley five years ago. “I love conventions, but they’re not tailored to making friends. It’s hard to make friends as adults.” She wanted camp activities and camaraderie. A sort of Burning Nerd...
ENC promotes two overarching tenets: You’re free to be who you are, and this is a no-judgment zone. “If you’re looking for some nerds to troll/bully, ENC is not for you,” the camp website states. “We’ll boot you out and keep your money.”
Participants described middle and high school as an interminable hell. They had to become adults, and wait for the world to change, to gain acceptance, and find their tribe. Yet it can still be hard to fully unleash their inner geeky selves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/growing-up-we-were-the-weird-ones-the-wizarding-mermaiding-cosplaying-haven-of-epic-nerd-camp/2018/08/27/f461a04a-9bd9-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html
Epic Nerd Camp is designed for grown-ups who have no intention of growing up, who want to feast on the fantastic — the less grounded in reality the better.
ENC offers all the splendors of overnight camp (bugs, bug juice, cafeteria mystery meat) for men in kilts and women with hair stained all the colors of Disney. Costumes are worn with Cher-like vigor. Medieval times reign, as do unicorn onesie pajamas. Jon Luke, who goes by Ouch! — fire performer by passion, pension administrator by day — and his wife, Jen Lavado, brought seven costumes each.
“Nerds have taken over. Tech culture has made it so much easier,” said Kofman, 30, of Chicago, a graduate student in public health who, when on dry land, favored pirate regalia. “Whatever your passion is, you can nerd out here.”
There are nerds — you may consider yourself one — and then there are nerds. They are precisely who assembled for five days and four nights at this camp in the Poconos where shame was shunned and freak flags were happily flown.
Celebrating its third summer, ENC featured live-action role-playing (LARP), role-playing games (RPG) and cosplay. Confuse them at your peril. Also, wandmaking, sword fighting, boffer games, Quidditch, wizarding, chainmaille, escape rooms and FX makeup.
If you need to Google half these things, this camp is not for you. For 200 campers and volunteers from 31 states, plus Canada and Sweden, it was nirvana, their nerd Brigadoon.
ENC was the brainchild of Kim Kjessler, 37, a former dolphin trainer, and her 26-year-old chef husband, Bentley. “I designed a camp that I wanted to go to,” she said in the Arts and Crafts shed, where campers created wizard staffs, leather apothecary cuffs and Edvard Munch-like portraits of a “Last Jedi” porg.
She was inspired by gaming gatherings such as BlizzCon, where she met Bentley five years ago. “I love conventions, but they’re not tailored to making friends. It’s hard to make friends as adults.” She wanted camp activities and camaraderie. A sort of Burning Nerd.
That first summer a group of Russian models appeared — drawn to the circus activities yet confused as to what a nerd might actually be. Said Bentley, “they didn’t jibe much with the other campers.”
Epic Nerd Camp is a 5-day summer camp for adults in Pennsylvania's Poconos Mountains that celebrates cosplay, LARPing, RPGs, Quidditch, escape rooms, swordplay, wizarding, and many other special interests popular among geeks. The Washington Post's Karen Heller paid a visit:
ENC was the brainchild of Kim Kjessler, 37, a former dolphin trainer, and her 26-year-old chef husband, Bentley. “I designed a camp that I wanted to go to,” she said in the Arts and Crafts shed, where campers created wizard staffs, leather apothecary cuffs and Edvard Munch-like portraits of a “Last Jedi” porg.
She was inspired by gaming gatherings such as BlizzCon, where she met Bentley five years ago. “I love conventions, but they’re not tailored to making friends. It’s hard to make friends as adults.” She wanted camp activities and camaraderie. A sort of Burning Nerd...
ENC promotes two overarching tenets: You’re free to be who you are, and this is a no-judgment zone. “If you’re looking for some nerds to troll/bully, ENC is not for you,” the camp website states. “We’ll boot you out and keep your money.”
Participants described middle and high school as an interminable hell. They had to become adults, and wait for the world to change, to gain acceptance, and find their tribe. Yet it can still be hard to fully unleash their inner geeky selves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/growing-up-we-were-the-weird-ones-the-wizarding-mermaiding-cosplaying-haven-of-epic-nerd-camp/2018/08/27/f461a04a-9bd9-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html
Epic Nerd Camp is designed for grown-ups who have no intention of growing up, who want to feast on the fantastic — the less grounded in reality the better.
ENC offers all the splendors of overnight camp (bugs, bug juice, cafeteria mystery meat) for men in kilts and women with hair stained all the colors of Disney. Costumes are worn with Cher-like vigor. Medieval times reign, as do unicorn onesie pajamas. Jon Luke, who goes by Ouch! — fire performer by passion, pension administrator by day — and his wife, Jen Lavado, brought seven costumes each.
“Nerds have taken over. Tech culture has made it so much easier,” said Kofman, 30, of Chicago, a graduate student in public health who, when on dry land, favored pirate regalia. “Whatever your passion is, you can nerd out here.”
There are nerds — you may consider yourself one — and then there are nerds. They are precisely who assembled for five days and four nights at this camp in the Poconos where shame was shunned and freak flags were happily flown.
Celebrating its third summer, ENC featured live-action role-playing (LARP), role-playing games (RPG) and cosplay. Confuse them at your peril. Also, wandmaking, sword fighting, boffer games, Quidditch, wizarding, chainmaille, escape rooms and FX makeup.
If you need to Google half these things, this camp is not for you. For 200 campers and volunteers from 31 states, plus Canada and Sweden, it was nirvana, their nerd Brigadoon.
ENC was the brainchild of Kim Kjessler, 37, a former dolphin trainer, and her 26-year-old chef husband, Bentley. “I designed a camp that I wanted to go to,” she said in the Arts and Crafts shed, where campers created wizard staffs, leather apothecary cuffs and Edvard Munch-like portraits of a “Last Jedi” porg.
She was inspired by gaming gatherings such as BlizzCon, where she met Bentley five years ago. “I love conventions, but they’re not tailored to making friends. It’s hard to make friends as adults.” She wanted camp activities and camaraderie. A sort of Burning Nerd.
That first summer a group of Russian models appeared — drawn to the circus activities yet confused as to what a nerd might actually be. Said Bentley, “they didn’t jibe much with the other campers.”
