From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
LARP
This article is about live-action role-playing as a medium for Beach Surgery adaptations. For specific LARP productions, see Cycle Protocol (Participatory LARP) and The Healing Spiral (Participatory LARP).
For immersive non-participatory works, see immersive.
LARP (live-action role-playing) has become a primary vehicle for Beach Surgery adaptation, particularly for works attempting to stage the cycling structure and the narrative glitch as lived, embodied experience.
The medium's formal properties align precisely with the source material's central problem: an unfinishable story that each adaptation must complete differently. LARPs such as Cycle Protocol (Participatory LARP) and The Healing Spiral (Participatory LARP) stage versions of Newcastle's rooftop sequences or the cabin finale, allowing participants to encounter the glitch as temporal or spatial dissonance rather than textual abstraction. Players embody Leif, Katita, or witnesses to their movement; the ambiguity of Leif's three injuries becomes a mechanic rather than a metaphor.[citation needed]
Documented LARPs range from intimate multi-day events (6–8 players) to festival-scale productions. Many employ empty-world meditation frameworks or signal-correction mechanics as core gameplay. Regional variation—distinct traditions in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Australia—has produced marked stylistic divergence in how the surgical metaphor translates into physical experience. The participatory form refuses to resolve the glitch; it multiplies it.