Today’s party is Murder in Manhattan, hosted by Megan. This was the first of what she expects will be many murder mysteries for out hostess. Megan said,
“I’ve wanted to attend a murder mystery party for years, but never had the chance. Finally, I decided to host my own! We had 26 RSVP’s. It worked out perfectly. The party was so much fun!”
Everyone arrived at 6pm and was given a chance to get drinks and mingle for about an hour. Name tags were passed out and the mystery officially started. People got a few drinks in them and loosened up a little so they were less nervous.
Megan was the planner and organizer, so she knew who the killer was and was able to plan accordingly. However, she is unsure if she would have also wanted a chance to guess.
“I was a little apprehensive about the caterer characters at first. I didn’t want to invite people to a party then ask them to serve food and drink. But I had a few guests on the shy side who preferred not to have super social characters so I assigned them caterer characters. Once they arrived I told them they did not have to serve anything but if they wanted to use it as an excuse to jump into conversation they could. That worked out great.”
Towards the end, everyone was accusing one another and when it came time for voting, only 4 people guess correctly out of the more than 20 guests that attended!
The game was over at 10pm.
“I probably could have wrapped it up sooner if I had moved the game along faster, but everyone was having so much fun laughing and talking, I hated to interrupt. There was never a lull in conversation or the game the entire night.”
“We got great feedback from our guests and have already decided this will be an annual event!”
Megan was a great hostess and made sure her guests had heavy hor d’oeuvres. These included a large tray from Chik-Fil-A and several finger foods. All of the food was set up in the dining room so the guests could help themselves. She even served pizza after the conclusion of Murder in Manhattan, as the guests were starting to get hungry again! There were many drinks ranging from beer and wine, to various types of liquor.
Megan decided to order a New York skyline which she cut out and placed on all of the windows to help set the scene.
The original cocktail party sounds were initially played. However, once everyone showed up and started conversing, it was too loud to hear.
Email invitations were sent out first. Once everyone RSVP’d, Megan emailed their character sheets individually. The few characters that had specific costume suggestions were brought to life by the guests portraying them. They committed to their role fully and made the evening even more fantastic!
Megan and her friends had a wonderful time playing Murder in Manhattan. Thank you for choosing Playing With Murder, and we look forward to helping you host your future murder mystery parties.