A few years ago Claus Raasted talked about “tourist larp” and compared the early Nordic blockbusters (such as College of Wizardry), which cost 500 Euro to attend, to low-end package skiing holidays. In the couple of years since, the 500 Euro larp has become a well-established model, and there’s now three I can name off the top of my head (CoW, Fairweather manor, and New World Magischola). But this model of expensive, high-end larp has just broken another barrier, with the first larp which cost over US$1000:
Its a six day road-trip down US Route 66. It costs US$1200. This includes 6 nights of accommodation and a bunch of food, plus the larp experience, but still: its a huge leap from the US$50 weekend which is standard there (or the NZ$100 weekend standard here). And if they can find a market, more power to them.
I don’t think there’s much scope for this sort of larp in NZ - the market is just too small. There might be a market for high-end supernatural style larps in the vein of “God Rest Ye Merry” (look it up), since they can work with 20 players. But even then it would be risky.