Baraboo Murder Mystery Weekend
Greetings Fantasy Nerds! First off, we apologize for not posting last Sunday, but it’s because we were together doing an amazing event! In this post, we will tell you all about it. Every year for the last five years in Baraboo, WI the town holds an event called Baraboo Murder Mystery Weekend!
During the event, the entire downtown is transformed into a murder investigation! At noon on Saturday, the Coroner’s report is read aloud in the main square along with the taped-off crime scene you can investigate.
There were thirty stops at different businesses downtown to gather all of the clues! Many of the businesses were making a great time of the event. Some had themed mystery drinks, mystery discounts, little guessing-games or raffles, and one even set out popcorn for all the amatuer detectives! We spent all of Saturday collecting the clues.
They also provide you with a map, a newspaper, and a QR code to watch YouTube videos that contained clues. They even created a fake wedding website! Saturday evening we brought back all our clues, popped open a bottle of wine, and went through all the online evidence and clues we gathered that day. We then formulated some theories and wrote down questions for our suspects.
We spent all of Sunday interrogating the various suspects, who were local business-owners and residents volunteering to act the parts for the weekend. You could find them around town to ask them questions, and eavesdrop on conversations between the different suspects or other people asking them questions! We all agreed that they did a great job staying in character. One protestor even tried to recruit the participants to join them.
Once we finished all our interviews, we settled in at the local winery, which was one of the clue stops. The couple that owns the winery were suspects in the event, so we asked them questions while we enjoyed their mystery wine-tasting. The wines were incredible! We used this time to finalize our theories and fill out our guesses for the raffle. Then, it was time to gather for the big reveal!
The reveal was a production in the local theatre and was so much fun! The Police Chief went over each suspects’ motives and how he eliminated them, before finally telling the clues that led to solving the murder. You even got to watch the murderer get arrested and be led off stage. There were even plenty of raffle prizes! Correctly solving the murder qualified you for the Grand Prize, but even if you were incorrect (like us), you still got entered in the other raffles. Overall, it was a blast!
At the end of the event, they announced the theme for next year, which involves the murder of a Fantasy Author named Paige Turner! We are definitely planning to attend next year. We learned a lot this year about how the event works and some things we would do differently.
We got a later start both days and ended up running out of time to question all the suspects on the second day. Next year, we plan to start right when they open and hopefully interview a few suspects the first day. We liked spending Saturday night analyzing everything we gathered the first day, so we will continue that plan next year. However, we only watched the videos once and missed a crucial detail. Next year, we plan to pay closer attention and re-read/re-watch everything. Even though we didn’t solve the mystery this time, we still had a ton of fun trying!
What did you think of the Baraboo Murder Mystery Weekend? Have you done anything like it? Would you like to attend? Let us know in the comments!
Thanks so much for reading!
-Clever & WTF
