Teambuilding
When I first got involved with Murder Mystery events in the UK nearly 30 years ago, they were huge. We used to regularly be booked by a beautiful old hotel of long – overnight events and gained a following of regular guests. We gained an annual booking in the South West of England where we would take over an entire village for a full weekend.
However these were all for fun. Venues and guests would book us for a weekend break or a fun night out.
Since starting Cloak & Dagger in Australia in 2005, by far the most common type of booking we get is from business who want to use the event as a unique team building exercise.
This makes perfect sense. To quote the psychology of team building: “Simply working alongside other team members doesn’t mean you are working effectively as a team. Real teamwork is defined by collaboration, communication, and the acknowledgement of a shared common purpose.”
Over the last 14 years we have become experts in designing Murder Mystery Events as effective Team Building tools.
Not only have we written a few scripts where actors pose as team building facilitators and actually get the guest playing a game before the situation degenerates into chaos and murder is committed, but we collaborate with the booking client to design team and communication outcomes as part of the event.
Generally we print enough statement books for every guest so each guest can investigate on their own – although almost always people will naturally create small groups. In line with the company wants from the event, we can print colour coded books of set group sizes, only print enough books to force a set team size or even pre print names on books forcing very specific teams.
We can then write a script to get a certain outcome for the groups.