If you are having friends or family to stay, why not host your own murder mystery weekend to make it more fun? You can use any of our murder mystery kits or mystery (not murder) kits. You can use the standard bundles or play versions if you are having up to 16 guests in total. Or any meet and mingle version if you are having more guests.

The steps to running your murder mystery weekend

Read the host guide. Send your guests their invitation a couple of weeks ahead of when you plan to have the weekend party. Most kits invitations include a link to a page where they can see their character description and dress suggestions. They can also read about the suspects which is important as we sometimes hide important clues in these descriptions. If they don’t have a number of outfits for their character to wear, they may just like to have a prop or two handy to help them become them whenever they need to during the weekend (e.g. a special hat to wear).

After all the guests have arrived (e.g. on Friday afternoon), gather everyone together and read out the Rules and have everyone introduce everyone themselves by having them read out their character description.

Then serve dinner. After dinner, do Act One of the kit. For the standard versions, you go around the group and everyone says their first clue, then you go around again and everyone says their second clue and so on. Sometimes someone may have a question for a suspect and when the suspect answers that counts as their turn. For the play version, just pass around the play with each person saying their line when specified. For the meet and mingle version, let everyone mingle for 20 to 30 minutes (but only give them half the number of clues you have for them if there are enough).

At breakfast the next morning, no doubt everyone will be talking about the motives everyone had to commit the murder (or commit the crime for the mystery – not murder kits).

After Saturday lunch, do Act Two (for the standard and play versions). For the meet and mingle versions, let everyone mingle for another twenty minutes. You may like to give them a fresh batch of clues to use for this (if you have some left). During the rest of the afternoon, although its fine for people to discuss what they have learned, if they work out who has done it, they should keep that to themselves (although generally they won’t be able to work this out until after Act Three).

After dinner, they should do Act Three (for the standard and play versions). For the meet and mingle versions, read out the report(s). Speculations will be many and no doubt accusations too. People should write down who they think did it and how and why they did it.

The grand finale of the great murder mystery weekend

In the morning, after people have slept on it, they may like to revise their notes as to who did it. Gather everyone together after breakfast and open the Who Did It pages (which you should have placed in a sealed envelope). Pass it around and have each suspect read out their section in the order in which they are listed. The last person that reads is the one who did it and they will explain everything. All will be revealed. If you want to enter one of our competitions (see below for details), you may like to have your guests sign our photo release permission form.

You may like to hand out prizes to the people who worked it out. You may also like to give prizes for people who dressed the best as their character. Once everyone goes home, you may like to use Google Photos (or similar) so everyone can share their murder mystery weekend photos. And you may like to enter the best ones in our photo competition (or video or decor competition as appropriate) and win a mystery party game of your choice.