Murder fundraiser recommendation needed

by Giovanni
(Tampa Bay, Florida USA)

Hello from Tampa Bay, Florida. I'm looking for a fundraising dinner party, and wonder how your game could be a fit.

We will have a small staff to do all of the greeting, serving, photos, hosting, etc.

The host will want to know just who the murderer is in advance.

We would sell tickets for others to sit at a table of 8, and each table will watch the interaction, and at the end vote on whom they think the murderer is. And win a prize.

We'd like the actors to be able to walk around from table to table and answer questions the table of "investigators" will have for clarification. So I'm guessing this will take place once or twice in your game - after the "secret telling"

What game do you recommend? We are a retirement community, with lots of retired actors.

I envision the cast of characters will be introduced one at a time, over a 20-minute period, to everyone in attendance and will enter in character. They could mingle and maybe explain what they already know about their role, name, etc., to the guests as they mingle. Everyone will have a buffet dinner, and the game will begin with dessert and the main table (characters). I think, ideally, we would want 10-14 characters. Plus, the host. The murdered person could be the host, who later becomes the police to help move the investigation/game along or something like that.

Does any of this work? make sense? (I attended this kind of function years ago as a fundraiser when I lived in NY, and trying to re-create similar here). Many thanks.

My response:

Hi, it sounds like the kind of game you're interested in would be one of the Mysteries-on-the-Net games. They have a small group of "actors" and everyone else is detectives trying to solve the murder.

However, you will need to check with them to make sure that they are happy for their games to be used as a fundraising event.

Click here to learn more about Mysteries-on-the-Net.

I've also written an article on using murder mystery games for fundraisers, which you can read here: Fundraiser Ideas.