Father’s Day Scavenger Hunt

fathers-dayOne of the nicest things you can do for your Dad on Father’s Day is make him feel appreciated, loved and special.   What better way to do that than make him a fun scavenger hunt.   With TextClues it’s easy to set up a great scavenger hunt for him to play by using his cell phone.

 

When setting up your own personal scavenger hunt think about your Dad’s interests and hobbies and jot down some notes of various questions you might use for the hunt, also decide whether you’ll use small gifts along the way, as he solves some of the clues, or just a special gift at the end of the hunt.  For example, you could hide small gifts or notes under the bed, in the garage, in the shed or under the sofa etc. and send him text message clues to solve in order to find his gifts.

Pick the time you’d like your scavenger hunt to begin, here at TextClues you create your own custom scavenger hunt.   You pick the day and time you’d like your hunt to start and at that time your first text message will be sent to him challenging him to accept his scavenger hunt.  Then you can sit back and see how much fun he’ll have.

Your scavenger hunt could be set up a little like this, if your Dad is a sports fan,

Clue:    Hi Dad, Happy Father’s Day.  We’ve set up a fun scavenger hunt for you today, if you’d like to play, text back “yes”

Answer:  Yes, yes

 

Clue:  Great, glad you’re up for a challenge.   Answer this – What three endurance sports make up the triathlon?

Answer:  Swimming, cycling & running

 

Clue:  Well we’re off to a good start!  Next question, after retiring as a player, with which team did baseball great Babe Ruth spend one year as a coach?

Answer:  The Brooklyn Dodgers

 

Clue:  Well you’re really doing well.  Check upstairs in the linen closet and see if you can find your paper clue and text back the answer.

(In the linen closet you hide a note with the clue – “go check in the fridge and see what’s in the blue bag” – you’ve previously hidden a small gift of chocolate for him in the this bag)

Answer:  chocolate

 

Clue:  Excellent, it’s your favourite kind.  In 2015 which horse  won the Triple Crown at Belmont Park in New York?

Answer:  American Pharoah

 

Clue:  Now take a walk outside on the deck, look under the patio table for a surprise!

With this final clue, he goes outside on the deck and finds a gift bag hidden under the patio table with a gift of some tickets to see one of his favorite sports teams inside.

 

 

Well, you get the idea. You can make the hunt as involved as you’d like using lots of clues and surprises along the way.   Get started making your own Scavenger hunt with TextClues.  Personalize it for the special Dad in your life. Go try our free demo right now!

 

 

 

Coronation Street Trivia Game

Here’s an idea for all you fans of the TV show Coronation Street.  If you’re anything like me you’ve been watching this soap for years, well how about you set up a trivia game for your friends and family who are also fans and test your knowledge.  You could have your mother playing the game from her home and other family members and friends living in their hometowns all playing against each other, all they need to participate is the use of a cell phone.

 

With Textclues you can organize all the questions and answers ahead of time and then have them texted to your friends and family anywhere in Canada or the UK all at the same time, this means that everyone starts playing at the same time too.

 

Everyone could play individually or as a team.  Most Coronation Street fans have been watching the show for years so there is plenty of scope for questions.  You could have prizes of some Coronation Street memorabilia to be given/sent to the winner.  This could be a fun way to connect  your out-of-town friends and family.

 

Maybe everyone decides to play on a particular Sunday evening at 7pm.  Your first text could say something like “Welcome to the Coronation Street trivia game, reply “great” to start the game off.”  Once they text “great” as their reply the first question of the game will be texted to them.  Start off with a few really easy questions and then make them harder as the game goes on.

 

Question:  Who is married to Ken Barlow?

Answer:  Deirdre, Deirdre Barlow

 

Question:  Who runs the hair salon?

Answer:  Audrey, Audrey Roberts

 

Question:  What is the name of the pub on the Street?

Answer:  Rovers Return Inn, Rovers Return

 

Whoever finishes first would be texted the winning message “You’ve won the Coronation Street trivia game!”

You can make the trivia game as easy or difficult as you want depending of the interest of the participants, what’s great is that you can input your questions and answers when you have time and on the day you decide to play everything is all ready to go.

Hope this gives you a few ideas of how you can set up your own trivia game.  Try out the free demo here.

 

Movie Theme Trivia Game for a Family Reunion

If you’re trying to plan some fun activities for a family reunion, how about organizing a fun  trivia game based on movies we’ve all seen. With an easy-to-use and ready made tool like TextClues you can easily involve everyone in the fun as long as they have a mobile phone. Great for small or large groups and all ages. Everything can be set up beforehand and on the day you can relax and enjoy the fun.

A movie theme trivia game is a great way to involve the whole family in a fun activity. To get your trivia game started, think about whether you want everyone to play as individuals or you could also divide them up into teams, depending on the age groups.

 

First, decide on how many questions you’d like your trivia game  to include and start jotting down some ideas. You can include movie categories based on the people attending your reunion. Lots of kids means more questions geared towards that age group, older family members would more likely remember some of the old classics, you choose your own questions. If you decide on teams, mix up the age groups so everyone has a chance to answer the questions.
Next, think of some prizes for the winners, either an individual prize or enough for the members of a team.  Movie tickets would be a good choice, maybe packaged in gift bags.

Here are a few suggestions for clues to get your trivia game started:
Clue: Which of the witches was killed when Dorothy’s house landed in Oz?
Answer: Wicked Witch of the East, Witch of the East

Clue: What is the name of the character played by Drew Barrymore in E.T.?
Answer: Gertie

Clue: What’s the name of Sid’s dog in Toy Story?
Answer: Scud

It’s easy to personalize your movie questions for your own family.  I hope you have got some good ideas for your next family reunion.

Organizing a large or small group trivia game with a movie theme can be easily made with the TextClues service. With TextClues :

  • you can monitor the trivia game from any device that is connected to the internet
  • You can enter as many mobile phone numbers as you want
  • You can track how many wrong answers a team had and base scoring on these numbers
  • The participants can enjoy an entirely unique activity where all clues and answers are completed via text messages

To see the TextClues service work on your phone try out the demo for free!

City or Campus Tour

Are you trying to organise a city tour, a campus tour, or just a general tour of an area for individuals but you don’t know where to start?  Are you trying to organise a tour of your facilities so that you don’t necessarily need to be physically present on the tour, but at the same time ensure to give your guests a good experience of your facilities or surroundings?
Using an easy-to-use tool like TextClues, it can organise a tour for your group in a way that you wouldn’t normally have expected!

TextClues can be used in two ways for a tour:
1) To help guide individuals from one location to another that are new to the area
2) To determine whether individuals within a certain location remember where facilities and specific points of interests are (if they have already been on a tour)

Both of the above would be setup in the same way, however it is simply a matter of how you would word your clues.  We’ll give examples of both, but we’ll start off with a completely new group wanting to tour around an area for the first time on their own…

Say, for example, you are a tour company, and want to provide customers the ability to take tours on their own time, stroll through the streets at their own pace, but still make use of your touring service. You could easily have users subscribe to a specific “tour hunt” via TextClues that will bring them to interesting attractions around your city
:)

Here’s an example for the city of Toronto:

Clue: The tour begins in the heart of Chinatown – Dundas and Spadina. Do you see the big tall tower (aka CN Tower) south of you? Walk down Spadina towards this tower. Take time to stroll down the street, go into some shops/markets, and enjoy a fresh drink. When you’re done, text “yum”
Answer: Yum
Clue: Have you reached the big tall Tower yet? If not, keep going until you are at its base :) Take time to take some photos and if you are up for it, have a ride up the tower too! When you’re done with the area, text “yay”
Answer: Yay

Now, if you want to test out some students at a campus, to see how familiar they are with a building, you can make it a bit more interactive :) Fictional campus used in the below example.

Clue: Start at the main campus. Go to the building on campus that has a cannon outside of the building. What year is found on the cannon?
Answer: 1853
Clue: Great job! Now, where on campus can you buy a nice big smoothie? Go there now and tell is the best selling item.
Answer: Fruity Blast

As you can see, you can have all sorts of fun creating a scavenger hunt/text messaging tour and make the tour go any way you would like it ;) And with TextClues, the organisation of it all just makes it *that* much easier.  Try it out today and you will see how easy you can have it work for you too.

Pub Crawl Scavenger Hunt

Planning a night out with your friends? Give the night some direction and even some competition by adding a scavenger hunt to the mix.

Adding a scavenger hunt will make your pub crawl one to remember. Everyone will be
rushing to their destinations laughing and joking about the clues set out along the way.

Pub crawls are perfect for scavenger hunts because bars and pubs always have unique features that can help create a funny and entertaining hunt.

Organizing a large group scavenger hunt but can be made easily with the text clues service.  With textclues you:

  • Don’t need to set up physical clues at each destination that may get damaged, taken or misplaced
  • You can monitor the scavenger hunt from any device that is connected to the internet
  • You can enter as many numbers as you want
  • You can track how many wrong answers a team had and base scoring on these numbers
  • Your hunters can enjoy an entirely unique activity where all clues and answers are completed via text messages
Try the Demo now!

Now let’s go over the steps to actually create your pub crawl scavenger hunt.

Make a List of Pubs You Want to Visit

You probably already have an idea of what area you want for the pub crawl. The pubs should preferably be in walking distance of each other and pick the bars with the most character or historical significance.

Head to Each Bar

Now it’s time to head to each bar to talk with the staff and start designing your clues. Talking to the staff, preferably the manager, is important to make sure that there will be capacity for all your participants. You should also take this time to try and negotiate a possible group rate for the event.

At this point you should also start collecting interesting facts and questions about the bar for your hunters to answer. Looking around for anything that catches your eye is a good way of coming up with quick clues for your participants. It’s also really fun to find out who will be working during the night of the pub crawl and ask questions about the staff (like a middle name or an interesting fact). If you let the staff know what you’re doing they may help you come up with a few clues themselves.

For this type of hunt the winner should be based on the least number of guesses rather than the first one through the hunt. This way the group can stay for a set period of time at each bar. The scavenger hunt should also be performed in teams which is a lot more fun than doing a scavenger hunt individually. You can tally up the team with the least number of guesses the night of the scavenger hunt or the day after and give out the prize.

Set up the Clues Online

Now it’s time to head back home and set up the clues and answers online. This part is simple; just enter the information on our online form. You can add a few different options for each answer and any answer that is 90% correct will still work! This is good if someone makes a slight misspelling of the answer.

Decide on the Prizes and Scoring System

A scavenger hunt is always more fun when there is a prize at the end. Decide on a prize that is related to the group you’re planning the hunt for. Having a funny or ironic surprise prize is a good way to go. Gift certificates are also great prizes. If one of the bars helped you out with your scavenger hunt you may consider getting a gift certificate for them.

There are few options for deciding on the winner of the scavenger hunt. The first way is the first team to reach the end. This might be a good option if you want to spend the majority of the time in the final bar. We recommend having a set period of time and base the winner on the team that got the least “try agains”. If there is a tie you could solve it with a coin toss.

Schedule the Hunt and Wait for the Fun

Now you can schedule you hunt for the big night and decide on the teams. Everyone is sure to have a blast.