How To Host An Amazing 1920's Speakeasy Themed Murder Mystery Party

 How To Host An Amazing 1920's Speakeasy Themed Murder Mystery Party

Hi people!

The 1920's. The height of the art deco period and probably the best party time in history. Oozing with speakeasies, flapper girls and of course the Charleston. In this post are some tips to give your party that extra oomph!

   1. Find a really great pre-planned murder mystery party pack

This is the crucial step to having a good party or a truly amazing party. I tried to plan my own murder mystery, and after several hours of scratching my head and making myself confused, I decided to take to Google.  After doing some extensive google searching and research for an excellent and good value pre-planned themed murder mystery party packs, I came across the website https://www.nightofmystery.com . They have a fabulous range of different themed pre-planned packs, from the 1920's Murder At The Juice Joint to Circus themed. I really liked it because you can customize it to the number of guests invited. I ordered the 12-15 guests pack, and it worked really well with around 14 guests. The packs come as a PDF download once you have paid, I found this really useful because you don't have to wait for anything to arrive in the post! 

Inside this party pack includes: 

• Invitations 
• Storyline and characters 
• Super cool posters and print out decorations 

    2.  Atmosphere

This part is by far my favorite section of party planning. The roaring 20's were filled with pearls, feathers, and lavish decorations. As the party was essentially taking place in a speakeasy, the first thought that came to mind was low lighting. I like to break this down into five sub-categories:

• Music
• Decorations
• Lighting 
• Space
• Smells

Music

I found on Apple music a vintage jazz playlist, a similar one would be available on Spotify or Amazon Prime. Jazz was a huge part of the 1920's as it was a new form of music, and it was frowned upon by many of the older generations as 'wild'. Perfect for an illegal nightclub! 

Decorations

For decorations, choose a color scheme. A color scheme typical of the 20's would be black, gold and white. The decorations really rely on space. The room or rooms that you are hosting the party in will limit or enable different decorations. At the back of the room, there was a large glass door opening onto my back garden, and as I wanted a low light effect I created a brick wall. I used a large plain white sheet, and printed bricks with a rectangle sponge. This also dubbed as a photo booth area:

Brick wall and cardboard jazz cutout

                                   

Photobooth

I made a silhouette cardboard cutout of a man playing the saxophone, because who needs a jazz band when you have cardboard?! When each guest arrived I made sure to get a photo of myself with them, and to make the photo more interesting I bought a lightbox in which I put the date and "Juice Joint Jail". I made a balloon arch out of gold and black balloons and draped it over the food table. Handily, my mum has this awesome antique looking painting hanging on one of the walls, so I took advantage of that and had the food table underneath.

Balloon arch

On the walls of the room, I stuck some of the print out posters included in the kit.

Fairy light hoop, Persian carpet, and posters

I had a Persian carpet spare as you do, and I felt it really added to the drama of the room. It also made the space feel smaller and darker.

In the background, you can see another table. I used this as a game table, which had a few packets of playing cards on it, including poker. This was a great addition because you could have fun interrogating someone over a game of cards! 

Lighting

I was aiming for a low light setting, I accomplished this somewhat with a ring of fairy lights hung in the center of the room. I lowered the normal light settings. There is a photo of the ring above. It was the first thing that guests noticed, and they seemed to like it! I also used bin bags and cardboard to block out sunlight from entering the room. However, the bin bags on the door to my garden fell off pretty quickly as the guests were going into the garden frequently. 

Space

I would suggest using a lounge area as normally there are fireplaces and also they tend to be the largest room in flats/houses. When I was choosing which room to use I was thinking flooring, high ceilings and enough space for each guest to feel comfortable. Inside the room, I fit two tables, one for food and one for games, a small leather sofa (which looks very antique!) and a few drinks tables. 

Smells

This is always fun to figure out. Smell plays a large part in setting the atmosphere. As this was my 15th birthday party, I had no alcohol which would be one of the main smells in a speakeasy, as well as cigarette smoke. Pretty ironic, a speakeasy party with no alcohol! Instead, I burnt a stick of incents to create the musty, old smell of a pub or similar. Another great smell would be wood burning, especially if you have a wood burning fireplace. I wasn't able to do this as my fireplace runs on gas... Didn't want to deal with actual dead bodies! 

3. Food- the best part of all parties 

Free food is one of the biggest highlights of a party. It makes or brakes it in my opinion! (it's also the main reason why people go to parties... lots of good food = more popularity). I headed off to Costco and bought a stack of cheap as chips canapes, such as mini pizzas (the height of sophistication, I know). Finger food is easiest in this situation as everyone is mingling, as it also saves time and money. Plus, less washing up afterward. I spent quite a few hours on eBay and Amazon trying to find cool plastic cocktail glasses, but the ones I was looking for all seemed very expensive and quite honestly really bad for our environment. Instead, I headed down to my local charity shops and in no time (and almost no money!) I had found some super cool mismatch cocktail glasses. The guests loved these as it made remembering which glass is yours so much easier! There is something about holding a beautiful martini glass in your hand that just makes you feel so sophisticated.

I bought a box of candy cigarettes, which were awesome! Everyone was always holding a pack, and even though they tasted a little bit nasty, the novelty of having a fake cigarette was fun.

The candy cigarettes I bought

These are actually illegal to sell in the UK, as they 'encourage smoking'. I asked one of my mum's American friends who was coming to the UK a few weeks before my party to buy me a box. I placed them in a pretty glass cake plate all standing up, and partically in a pyramid. They looked so cool!

The Cake 

And now- the cake. I definitely didn't schedule enough time for this, which is unusual as normally cake decorating is my favorite part! I made a red velvet cake using one of Yolanda Gampp (How To Cake It)'s recipes. Hands. Down. Fabulous. Best red velvet cake I have ever tasted. I then used her Italian Meringue buttercream icing recipe to cover the outside. I cannot begin to describe the taste and texture of the icing. Clouds, rainbows, unicorns, melted gold... just some of the thoughts racing through my mind when the icing melts in my mouth. I made a little pistol out of black fondant and placed it on top. I also rolled some white fondant into little balls and sprayed it with pearl spray to make pearl necklaces. I made a decorative scalloped black and gold border around the sides of the cake to add more interest.

Fondant pistol ontop of cake

Decorated cake

Finally for drinks, as it was filled with 15-year-olds I bought a couple of liters of gingerbeer and lemonade. For a proper speakeasy, champagne, whiskey, bourbon... The whole lot would be fantastic. 

4. Other ideas

So, now that I've covered most of the party, there are only a few bits left. I would suggest that you get those invites out around a month before the set date, as then you double the chance of all the guests being free. The suggested run time of the party is around 3 hours, but we finished it in 2. I did have a contingency plan if we finished early. I asked one of my friends who is awesome at dancing if she could teach us all how to do the Charleston, and the best dancer wins a prize. (A good prize would be a packet of emergency mustaches!). The website for the party packs says that they recommend it to adults, but as a group of teens it worked perfectly! Pinterest is always super handy for other ideas, and it is normally how I formulate plans in my head for parties, so definitely spend some time there looking at various decorations and other ideas.

My number one piece of advice is to get a friend to help you! If you have limited time to set up, having an extra pair of hands is essential. 

A huge thanks to my friend Lauren for helping me set up and make the cake- it wouldn't have happened if you weren't there!

Thank you all for reading my first ever blog post, if there is anything I have missed please do let me know in the comments below.

Molly xox