THE STORY OF MYSTERY MIXERS
By Tom Denham
(In picture on the far right with hat)
I have been asked many times how I came up with such a unique concept.
Many years ago, I was invited to a small dinner party of eight people where all of the guests got mystery scripts ahead of time. It was a game you bought in a box, and it had a little cut out body that you placed on the floor and some other silly stuff. But the party was fun.
The problem was there was only three mysteries in the box, and once we did them, that was it. As a professional writer, I decided I would write my own mystery party but I would make 20 characters instead of eight. I did the event, it worked, and I put it away and didn’t think about it anymore.
About six months later, I ran into somebody who said they had heard about the party I did, but they had almost 30 people, could I do a party for them? So I added a few more characters. The sizes of the parties kept growing, and eventually I was doing parties for up to 80 people. But most of our parties are in the 35-60 range. That is how my company Mystery Mixers (formerly Murder for Hire Inc.) was born.
Why 35 people? I began to notice that the 20 person parties got over too quickly, and the people ran out of stuff to do before it was time to solve the crime. Then I noticed that if we had at least 35 people, there is enough activity to keep everything going with high energy and lots of laughter.
I decided to stop trying to struggle with the smaller parties.
So for more than 30 years, I have focused on large groups – and I have had some tremendous experiences. I’ve done a Rock and Roll Party on a cruise to Nova Scotia, been sent to Key West to do a pirate party on a catamaran and had many other epic adventures.
But In 2024, we are off to a new adventure. Now for the first time, we are going to set up events so people don’t have to have a group to attend one of our parties. Once we start booking individual venues starting in January 2024, all people have to do is go on our website and select the character they want. They no longer have to be a member of a group.
Doing these parties has been a huge part of my life. I have created more than 600 characters and they have all walked in the door and said hello to me. I get to see my characters literally come to life.
The side benefit is I get to create an event where people get to laugh – a lot. I have had people come up to me who did one of my parties 10 years earlier, and they still remember what character they played and how much they laughed and had a good time.
What more could you ask for from life?
