When you attend your first murder mystery dinner, you’ll quickly realise that they way to find out the identity of the murderer and in doing so, win the game, is to figure out who’s telling the truth, who’s holding information back and who’s lying. There are seven common signs that the liars in your party will display when you’re talking to them, and it’s a great way to focus on who you want to investigate more. Read the rest of this entry

Murder mystery dinners are great fun, you get to take on a whole other persona for the evening as you battle crime (or try to pin it on someone else). For quite a few people, however, becoming someone else can be difficult, especially when things get intense. These tips and advice will help you to remain in character for the entire evening, so you can find out ‘whodunnit’. Read the rest of this entry

Murder mystery dinner rely on the atmosphere created by guests to provide a thrilling and fun evening with your friends or co-workers. We maintain responsibility for decorating your venue, paving the way for high amounts of intrigue and melodrama throughout the night. If you’re new to murder mysteries, this may seem a bit daunting. One great way to get into the spirit of the evening, and into character, is to have a convincing costume. By following these tips and advice, you’ll blow everyone else away with your perfect costume and you’ll feel fantastic. Read the rest of this entry

All amateur sleuths have to start somewhere and for many, this involves taking part in a murder mystery for the very first time. Whilst this is undoubtedly daunting, it can also be a brilliant learning curve, the more events you attend, the better you become at solving crimes.

Along the way you might make the odd mistake but that’s all part of the fun, you’ll trip up over the odd red herring, but this will hone your sleuthing skills, and make you a better detective in the long run.

Most people are clueless when they attend their very first murder mystery party and whilst they try to figure out whodunit, more often than not, they make these basic mistakes. Read the rest of this entry

One of the easiest ways to catch the killer at a murder mystery evening is to ask the right types of questions.  Sure, you can put your detective skills to great use, observe people, examine the basics and focus on events as they unfold, but you need to ask multiple questions as well, to finally unmask the villain. Read the rest of this entry

Murder Mystery evenings are fun, social occasions, you get the chance to play the role of detective, look for clues, question suspects, and the ultimate aim of the evening is to solve a crime.

Whereas a murder mystery evening is fun, real life killings are chilling. Acts of crime are committed by cold, calculating individuals, sometimes events unfold in the heat of the moment; in a high percentage of cases, it’s hard to understand what is going on inside the mind of a killer. Read the rest of this entry

Part of the fun of writing a puzzling murder mystery is thinking of devious ways to kill off your main characters. Shootings and stabbings are always popular, clubbing the character over the head with a blunt object is another option to include, or you could poison one of the characters and get rid of them that way. There are various types of poisons lethal to humans and we list some of them here for fans of murder mystery evenings. Read the rest of this entry

To have any chance of solving a murder mystery you need to brush up on clue spotting skills. This gets better with time, the more mysteries you attend the better your clue spotting becomes, and the more confident you become as an amateur detective.

Throughout any murder mystery evening there’ll be plenty of clues littered throughout the plot. This adds to the fun, the trick is to spot the genuine signs of evidence and ignore the lies, perfectly placed with the sole intention of dragging you down the wrong path. Read the rest of this entry

The crime is the key component to a murder mystery. Sure, you need a setting, a theme and characters to play their parts, without a crime though the evening would quickly draw to a close.

How do you conjure up a crime if you have no experience of dastardly deeds?  And what should you be thinking if you are plotting a crime for a murder mystery for the very first time?

We’re going to cover the basics in this next blog post. Knives at the ready and poison on standby, plan the perfect crime this way…

Choose a victim

Having established a theme for the murder mystery evening, pick a setting and drawn up a list of characters, the next part of the process is to choose a victim or two. Depending on how long the evening is intended to last, you might decide to choose a solitary victim and build the suspense around their murder. Once you have chosen the victim introduce them to the audience as soon as possible. You might want to kill their character off straight away at the beginning of the evening and get right into the action. Another option is to slowly introduce them to the audience, give them a little dialogue and use their character to develop reasons why other characters might want to kill them.

Plot their demise

You know who the victim is so it’s time to bump them off. Be as mercenary as you like when you think about their demise. Poison, stabbing and strangulation are good options. They could be shot or hit over the head with a blunt object. Be realistic with the choice of murder weapon though. If the murderess is small and slight it’s unlikely she’ll be able to strangle her heavily-built husband or lift a lead pipe to strike the fatal blow.

Think of motives

Why has the character committed such a foul deed? You need to give the murderer a suitable motive otherwise the plot can seem rather unbelievable. Well-written murder mysteries cleverly unwind as the night unfolds and the murderer always has a good reason to kill their victim.

Assign a killer

You’ve picked a victim, you know how they are going to be killed and can think of a few motives why certain characters might want to bump them off so what’s left to do? Pick the killer! To make it more fun try to pick one of the characters the players are least likely to guess. Give each character a reason to want to kill the victim and you pretty much have your pick from all the cast. Decide early on who’s going to be the main culprit and give clues that slowly reveal who the killer is.

Planning the crime is all part of the fun at a murder mystery dinner.  Book our services at Murder Mystery and we’ll do all the planning for you leaving you free to test those sleuthing skills.

Trust us, the best way to enjoy a Murder Mystery dinner is to embrace this wonderful experience and immerse yourself fully into the evening that lies ahead. Whether you have paid to go on a murder mystery evening or been told you’ll be taking part by a well-meaning boss, let go of those inhibitions and have as much fun as you can joining in with your fellow guests.

There are right and wrong ways to feel included at a sleuthing event. Steer clear of these fiendish fails if you want to have an amazing time.

Not dressing the part

You’ve been assigned a part, you know the murder mystery evening has a specific theme and is set in a certain period so dress to impress for the occasion. Avoid wearing modern clothing if you are attending a 1920’s themed mystery, you’ll stand out like a sore thumb and get funny looks from fellow players.

Plan your outfit in advance. If you need a tweed jacket, a 1940’s dress or a disco suit from the 1970s, start looking for your murder mystery outfit as soon as you physically can.

Not listening to clues

Pay attention during the murder mystery evening. Listen carefully to all the players assigned key roles and take plenty of notes as the event unfolds. Sit there ignoring the chat and fail to follow the plot closely and you haven’t got a chance of working out whodunit.

Clues can be subtle or blatantly obvious. Stay alert and you’ll stay one step ahead of the game.

Not reading the script

If you are allocated a part as a player during the murder mystery make the effort to read your lines.

People take these events seriously and you’ll spoil it for other people if you don’t treat it as such and learn your lines. The very least you can do is to have an idea of what your character is all about and gain a little insight into the plot.

Drinking too much alcohol

Drink yourself into a stupor during a murder mystery corporate event and this is likely to be frowned upon by senior management. They want people to have a good time but they don’t want the evening to be ruined by drunken players that have lost all sense of responsibility.

Have too much to drink and you’ll miss all the clues, won’t know what’s happening and this could be annoying for other fellow players. Have a drink by all means just stay in control. Wait until the murder mystery part of the evening is finished before you get stuck into the free bar.

Spoiling the plot

Think you’ve worked out who the murderer is? Tell this to your team members if you are working together as a group, don’t mention it to everyone at the murder mystery evening though. People taking part in murder mystery events like to work things out on their own, it kind of spoils things if you give the game away too early.

It might be glaringly obvious to you the vicar killed the maid but other guests might not be as quick with their powers of deduction. Write down who you think the killer is, you can hand this in later and keep the plot going until the end of the event.

Not being actively involved

Don’t be a grump. You’ve turned up to the mystery evening so play an active part. Everyone else is in exactly the same boat and once you get into the spirit of things you’ll suddenly realise a murder mystery event is tons of fun.

Think what Sherlock Holmes would do, use questioning skills and a little logic to reveal the killer.  Bet you’ll be that entertained you’ll want to do this all over again!

For help planning a murder mystery evening get in touch and we guarantee a killer of an evening.