2000 party
The First Party – At Home
Theme: Supernatural Scavenger Hunt
Location: Our Apartment
Costume: The Queen of Swords, from my lover’s tarot deck
(to compliment the King of Swords, chosen from my tarot deck)
Any setting works for Halloween, right? I was determined to have a memorable Halloween party at our home on the north side of the city. Since the road rally from 2 years earlier had been so much fun, I decided to plan one of my own. However, we didn’t want to send anyone driving anywhere given how crazy north side streets and parking are, so we needed to design a walking activity. We also couldn’t very well plant clues ahead of time, since they would likely go missing; it would also be very difficult for the players to ‘gather’ anything to bring back with them. So, after much head scratching, we finally figured it out.
We would have a photo scavenger hunt.
We scouted out locations within a mile of our apartment in all directions, and took black & white photos of anything that looked interesting. The one requirement was that the pictures needed to be of public property – no houses lest we get arrested for stalking. This meant we snapped shots of street-signs, bus stops, the very cool cemetery, the window grating on the back side of a local shop, the school, the church, a dedication stone in the local public garden, etc. Our final picture was of the rubble left from a multi-alarm fire our block had enjoyed the previous June. We then selected a few of the most interesting pictures, and began creating stories about each shot.
For example, the bus stop became known as the local run frequented by a spectral passenger on the anniversary of the day she was reported missing. The grated window was called the old county jail, a scene of several suspicious deaths. Some footprints in concrete were said to belong to Frankie no-nose, a member of Capone’s gang whose body was never accounted for. And so on. These stories, with their accompanying photos, were sorted and divvied up between two teams. Each team had both their own unique stories, as well as a few of the same tales.
I numbered the stories 1-9, and then placed them in sealed envelopes complimentarily numbered 1-9. I wrote instructions for each team telling them their mission was to find and duplicate the pictures linked with each of their stories. Each team was also provided with a Polaroid camera for this purpose (I have a Polaroid, and luckily I was able to borrow my sister’s camera too). Teams were instructed to open the envelops in sequential order, and to only open the next envelope once they had taken the picture for their current story. Finally, I gave each team a map (which I hand-drew), with a few of the street names filled in, and indicated by number the approximate location of each of the tales – this way no one would get lost, and no one team would have the advantage of being more familiar with the neighborhood than the other team.
The day of the party both teams were sent off to capture their pictures. Teams were told they would receive extra credit for capturing the image of a ghost on film. To this end, I had one of my sisters dress up as a ghost and walk around the neighborhood – I hoped at least one of the teams would see her and get her on film. The team who returned first with all their photos won.
Overall feedback:
People seemed to enjoy this activity very much. I still occasionally receive compliments on the cool scavenger hunt. Apparently one of the team leaders took his job a wee too seriously and ran across streets against traffic, leaving other team members stranded or in serious jeopardy. But all in all people said they had a very good time. I also kicked off the evening by having people at the party tell ghost stories (I had mentioned on the evite we would be doing this, so folks could prepare a story if they chose). Many guests whole-heartedly joined in this event and we took turns scaring each other, until after awhile I jumped in and said that my neighborhood was filled with several of its own ghosts and urban legends, which lead directly into my explaining the concept of the scavenger hunt (this was a surprise activity). According to my lover I was jumping up and down with excitement while explaining the rules of the hunt, but I have no memory of this.
What we learned:
1) Again, Keep It Simple Stupid. No one got a photo of my sister the ghost, or understood exactly why she was walking around. I also asked 2 different friends to send out an email to all of our collective friends saying they had read about ghostly activity in my neighborhood – I was hoping to get people ‘in the mood’ for the party. This too went way over everyone’s head, and one of my friends repeatedly forgot to send her email out, making me very frustrated. However, in spite of these 2 things, the structure of this activity was streamlined as compared to Halloween 1999.
2) It takes a village to plan a party. In between the photos, the stories, drawing the maps, writing the rules, and getting my costume together, sewing a cape for my partner’s costume, and decorating the house I don’t even know how many hours I logged on this party. It was a LOT of work. I had a lot of fun doing it, but I also realized how glad I am to be a ‘planner’ so that I wasn’t pulling all-nighters the week before the party.
3) People appreciate good decorating. The night before the party my lover, my sister, and I spent a few hours decorating a very large sheet of paper we hung on one wall with spooky images and typical Halloween-type sayings, like “Beware!” etc. In addition, we also spattered two large thrift store-bought sheets with fake blood and red food coloring, making bloody handprints and gory spatter. We also each carved a pumpkin. The next day, we covered the couch with the bloody sheets and placed the three candle lit jack-o-lanterns in the gangway leading into our building. My lover stood guard (dressed in medieval garb and an awesome handmade cape) at the end of the gangway, silently greeting guests and making sure our pumpkins did not get stolen. A few passers-by asked if they could attend the party, since it looked so cool. Ever since this Halloween I’ve put a lot of time and effort into transforming my home into a creepy party-land – and it’s always worth it.
Posted by acr at November 8, 2003 07:07 PM | TrackBack