What’s This Murder Mystery Thing All About?
A murder mystery party is a more than just a costume party—it is a fun, themed, 21+ event where each guest is assigned a character for the night to help solve the “crime.” Guest participation is a must, as you will have to mingle with the other characters to gather information to find the murderer (costumes are highly encouraged)!
Throughout the evening you will enjoy a meal and dessert, with a cash bar available, and an event venue decked out in the night’s theme. Bring your high enthusiasm and best acting and detective skills, because there are prizes at the end of the night for our murder solvers, best costume, and best performance!
Here’s what you can expect from a murder mystery hosted by Happy Day Catering:
1) Purchase tickets –Tickets go on sale about 3 weeks before the event, so keep your eye on our Happy Day Catering website and Facebook page for the announcement. Tickets are available at happydaycatering.com/specials.
- Tip: Tickets go fast! We sell out in about ten days, so if you want to go, purchase them early.
- Tip: Whenever possible, purchase tickets as a group. Some individual guests have waited too long and the event was sold out before they could get tickets to attend with their friends.
- Tip: If purchasing as a group, include each guest’s email address in the Notes section at checkout. This way it is guaranteed the important welcome/character email makes it to each person! If guest emails are not included, the character emails will go to the person who purchased tickets, and they will be responsible for passing along the information.
WAITLIST: If tickets sell out and you haven’t gotten one, please send us a message with your name, amount of tickets needed, and the genders of your guests, and we will add you to our waitlist for if a ticket/ticket groups do come available.
2) Read character email – About 1 week before the event you will get an email setting the stage for the night. It will explain the scenario and theme, and you will be assigned a character and backstory. It will also include reminders about date, time, and location.
- Tip: This message will go to the email address of the person who purchased the tickets unless they also provided guest emails. If you haven’t received it by 4pm on the day set for emails, please call our office so we can make sure it gets to you. (208) 743-0179
- Tip: Read ALL the included information! Don’t wait until the last minute. Remember: you are becoming another person for the night, so use all the information you can. The more you know about your character, the easier (and more fun!) the night will be for everyone.
3) Create costume – Seeing everyone’s costume is one of the best elements of the murder mystery. Costumes are not strictly required, but it makes it so much easier to get into character and adds to the theme of the evening.
- Tip: Your character email will include suggestions for attire. If you don’t want to use them, that’s okay! As long as you dress to the theme of the night, you’ll have fun!
- Tip: We encourage over-the-top, authentic, interesting, highly accessorized looks. There will be a Best Dressed prize at the end of the night voted on by our guests, so pull out all the stops and dress to impress.
- Tip: Get into character in other ways, too, with accents, mannerisms, or slang that your character might use. Ham it up to win the Best Performance prize!
4) Event time! – It’s the night of the party, and you’re all dressed up. Arrive at the event location at the appointed time. Forget who you were before you walked through those double doors—you’ve got a new character and a new life, so warm up those acting skills and get ready to mingle!
** LATE ARRIVALS ARE HIGHLY DISCOURAGED. **
** You will miss important elements of the game if you are not on time. **
When you arrive : Get checked in at the welcome table and receive your first objectives for the night. Grab a drink at the bar, find a seat, put on your nametag, and read through your objectives. These are your goals for the first half of the game, so get familiar with them.
First objectives: There will be welcome announcements, and then it’s time to really get digging for information! Find the relevant characters and chat them up. Bribe them for info with your funny-money if you need to…
** NOTE: You are not done once you complete your objectives—keep chatting with different guests to see what other information you can find!
Dinner, murder, and second objectives: Everyone will get to enjoy dinner provided by Happy Day Catering, and at some point—nobody knows quite when—the murder will occur. Open your second set of objectives and get back to sleuthing. Make sure to talk to as many people as you can to see what information they found, too—participation is key to solving the mystery.
Voting and Prizes: After all the evidence has been gathered and information shared, you will make your best guess as to who committed the crime, as well as vote on best dressed and best performance. Prizes will be awarded and the murderer revealed!
OTHER NOTES:
- There will be a photographer on site taking photos throughout the evening. These will be available on the Happy Day Catering Facebook page on the Monday or Tuesday following the event. Please feel free to tag and share!
- Check in on FB at Clarkston Event Center, and hashtag any pictures you take with #hdcmurdermystery to share with the world on FB, Instagram, or Twitter.
CANCELLATION & REFUND POLICIES:
PLEASE make sure your schedule is clear and ready for the event date! These are highly sought-after events, so do your best to make it work once your tickets are purchased. Things do happen, though, and you may not be able to attend after all. In that case, notify us ASAP so we can make the necessary logistics changes.
- If your plans change, first please try to find someone who can take your tickets. If you do find guests to take your place, just give us a call to authorize the new guests and provide us with their phone numbers and email addresses. (Make sure to have the last four digits of the card used when you call so we can verify you originally purchased the tickets.) Once we call them and process their payment information, we will also process your refund in full.
- If you cannot find other guests to take your tickets before character emails are sent: Please notify us as soon as possible, and we will attempt to resell them to someone on our waitlist. If we are able to resell them before emails are sent, we will process your refund in full. If we cannot resell them before emails are sent but do resell them after, we will refund half of the cost (half will be kept as an administrative fee). If we cannot resell your tickets, you will forfeit the payment.
- If you need to cancel AFTER character emails are sent: We will refund half of the cost if we can resell to someone on our waitlist (half will be kept as an administrative fee). It becomes very difficult to swap available characters, create new materials, etc., at the last minute. If we cannot resell your tickets, you will forfeit the payment. *Full refunds will be given only in limited, case-by-case circumstances.*
We hope we have answered all your questions in this FAQ walk-through. If you need more information, we will be happy to help! Give us a call at (208) 743-0179.
