How to Plan the Ultimate Murder Mystery Weekend

**OUR LIFE**

Behind-the-Scenes: Our Annual Mystery Weekend
Spooky season is here and you know what that means: it’s time for annual Mystery Weekend (aka a weekend-long murder mystery scavenger hunt)!

We wouldn’t say we’re big Halloween people, but we’re definitely give-us-a-reason-to-throw-a-party people! And with that prompt, we’ll deliver. But why settle for a party when you can throw a weekend-long event? And why settle for just hosting people for a weekend when you can blow it up to be a full-on activity? And that’s how the Mystery Weekend began… in a cabin in the woods and a little murder mystery. It’s evolved since then, and it’s become even more extravagant with the official Haus of Hamilton!

The Plan

Outline the itinerary. This is step 1, and Victoria’s favorite part of planning these weekends.
- Make sure you have plenty of down time between activities. As action-packed as we like to be, people need to recover in between. Remember, this is their weekend, too.
- For larger groups, provide opportunities for smaller groups to interact, so people can have more intimate conversations and form deeper connections.
- Establish “safe spaces” for individuals to retire and rest — whether that’s their own room or a quiet communal space, like a study, or peaceful outdoor areas. This is super important, especially if you have introverts in your group!
Provide a packing list. We like to keep our guests on their toes by giving them bare bones details. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want them to be able to plan! Whenever we host a gathering like this, we always send out a little packing list to help keep our guests organized for the weekend’s many different activities.
Consider the full experience. As our storyline for the mystery weekend was going to involve the use of a weapon, we looked for a group activity that would corroborate that people in the group were skilled and capable — and that’s how we ended up with an archery class on the itinerary! More on that later, but let’s just say we all loved it!

The Set-Up

Developing the Storyline: Writing the riddles and the clues might be the most intimidating part of planning — we would know! That’s where I stalled, too. We had all these ideas, but didn’t know where to start and the thought of writing clever riddles and rhymes was paralyzing! So that’s when we called in the reinforcements… Yup, we got some help from friendly AI tools.
Once we outlined the ideal storyline, the props we were using (e.g., puzzles, knife, etc.) and the areas of our property we wanted to include (e.g., stone walls, trees, clearing, etc.), we drafted up prompts that would give us 1) riddles for each clue, and 2) the story to describe the crime, which would be buried with the ‘murder weapon’ and reveal the killer!
- The Prompt: Act as a scavenger hunt writer. Craft an intriguing and clever clue that leads participants to discover bags of puzzle pieces hidden along the stone walls encircling the property. The clue should hint at using a light source as a guide. Keep the clue concise ensuring it is both challenging and engaging for participants. Note they need to collect all bags before they can open them and proceed.
- The Output:

By the ancient stone embrace,
Let the lantern's glow reveal the trace.
Seek where shadows cast their call,
Puzzle bags dwell along the wall.
Collect all the bags before you go,
For only then will secrets show.

Recording the Introduction Video: Once we determined we would need to introduce the activity during Movie Night, we thought it would be fun to sneak in a little intermission video. So we got some inspiration from the horror classic — The Blair Witch Project. We went for a walk around the property in the dark
Organizing the Puzzles: This was the fun part. We had to build the puzzles so we could write the clues on them (yes, we purposefully used a fine point pen to write on these puzzles, so the teams would need to assemble them to reveal the clues). And once we finished that we split the pieces up into marked bags (by color and count), so we could track that all clues were found.
Hiding the Clues: If you’re the planner, this part is critical!
- Rule #1 for planning out any type of scavenger hunt (whether you’re hiding Easter eggs or mystery clues), always have a map! You can make it as complex as having an actual map of your yard and denoting your hiding spots. Or you can simply take a photo of the area where you hide your item(s). We also numbered each of our bags to ensure both teams and planners know which clues have been found.
- Rule #2, if you’re planning the event and you want to partake, do what we call a “blind” hide. It’s simple — ball up each bag in your hand to hide the color of the clue as you hide each item. Or you can run around and hide things at night (don’t forget your map to mark general areas and just tally how many bags you’re hiding in that zone). Victoria is a fan of the former, while James is a fan of the latter.

The Execution

Stock Up on Snacks. Movie snacks (popcorn, candy, blood bags full of sangria), tea party snacks (biscuits, jams and jellies, cakes), just because snacks (charcuterie — cheese, crackers, prosciutto).
Decorate. Have fun with it! We like to use organic decorations or things we can repurpose, like flowers or pieces we can use year after year, but don’t take up much storage space (witch hats, battery powered candles, lanterns). Have fun! This is the part where you can be as creative as you want and release your inner child — decorate how you always wanted to decorate when you were a kid. Go all out, or keep it simple. As long as you’re having fun with it, that’s all that matters.
Set the Mood. Light the candles. Play the music. Do what feels right. Then get your party on :)

Need help getting started? Here’s what we bought!