Well…we have a winner for Journey Moore Often’s Pandemic Search© Scavenger Hunt, it was our very first!!
After one hour of intense play, the points laid out with Amanda’s team having the most.
Amanda, our first scavenger hunt winner!
Her team narrowly beat out Joe’s team to secure first place. They went neck and neck the whole way through the hour of the scavenger hunt, and the winner was not apparent until the last of the submittals.
What got the scavenger hunt started
As we were home-bound for a while, we knew that posting articles would be limited to whatever we were involved in. We were fortunate to have been able to go to Miami just before the quarantine and experienced Miami’s The Wynwood Walls, Little Havana, SoCal Cantina, Mesa Mar Seafood Table, and Kush-Wynwood. However, we were now faced with postponing the 4 trips we had for the rest of the year.
JMO was looking for something to keep interest and create a buzz.
With that in consideration, Journey Moore Often went into their think tank. It was Dianne who came up with the great idea of having a scavenger hunt! Given that we were all on stay-at-home orders, we called it Pandemic Search©.
How we put it together
Playing a scavenger hunt can be fun and frenetic, however, hosting one is a whole different experience. There is a science and philosophy to setting one up and how it is implemented.
The list of questions needs to be sufficiently hard that it is unlikely that everyone can provide every item on the list. However, it can’t be so hard to obtain the listed items so as to discourage players.
Our Pandemic Search© Scavenger Hunt list was split into 3 different and very basic categories. Easy, Medium, Difficult.
The easy items were those people could find simply by going to a known location in their house.
Medium items were a bit more challenging, but still not too difficult. Some of it was luck. Did anyone keep a hard copy of the ADC© map book? If so, where was it in the house? Surprisingly, we actually found a copy ourselves. We knew that we had them at one time, however, we didn’t know that we still had even one now.
Difficult items required more time and research. Teams needed to scour the website along with some internet sites. Easier items were finding a nearby travel agent, or the longitude and latitude of the Roman Amphitheatre in Orange, France. The more time consuming items were like the one difference between the post and page of the Musée du Louvre article. Or how many countries did we visit when we went to Spain? Those required reading the entire article to ascertain the answers.
Submitting the item required emailing a picture with either both the item and registered player, or the item and the “marker” picture.
How we set it up
The physical setup took a bit of finesse. It required a location in the house where we had access to several outlets, internet, and a tables each with a various function. We ran two outlet strips from two different circuits to our table on the porch outside. A smaller table was used for the “live” camera (iPhone)on a tripod and staging our own scavenger hunt items. Our antique “telephone” stand was used for the timer, which was a monitor connected to the laptop. There was a second iPhone on a smaller tripod used for the Zoom© call to the registrants.
How it played out
Unbeknownst to observers, JMO staff were communicating regularly with the registrants. Basic information was provided in the days prior to the event. At roughly 2:00pm, one-hour before the event, we emailed them the Game Day Notes.
Then we had a Zoom© conference call 15 minutes prior to the hunt to provide the players with an orientation of the game. Near the end of the orientation call, we emailed each of the registered players the 20 item list. Once confirmed, we went on Facebook© with a live video, and also posted the list on our Facebook© event page. With the list posted, anyone who had not registered could still play, even if they couldn’t win the prize.
Players emailed their items in, describing which item they were submitting. Some emails had one item, others had multiple items.
Because of the varied complexity of the items, the easiest items came in first. Items like the toilet paper stash, extension cord, and hand sanitizer were submitted within only a few minutes. Then the game slowed up a bit while people were searching for other items like the oldest bottle of wine or their passport showing the furthest distance traveled. The final items were submitted with only a minute or two left on the clock.
We gave regular updates as well as shared some of our own items as examples. During the live event, we even through out a couple of hints near the end. If teams were watching it offered bits of information that could assist them in gaining perhaps another 10 points or so.
Gaming the system
The construction of the listed items deliberately allows for some gaming of the system. While certain items have specific qualifications, other items have purposely been left vague on purpose. Two of the examples on the list for this hunt were the hand sanitizer and the luggage scale.
A container with a label that says hand sanitizer – we assumed that most people would have a container that had the words hand sanitizer on it, but allowed for someone to create their own.
A working luggage scale – this was an item we assumed most people would not necessarily have. Although we specified “working”, we did not specify it had to be an item sold as a luggage scale. Those who did not have a luggage scale, but had a working scale to weigh themselves were afforded the ability to be creative for this item submittal.
For future scavenger hunts, there is an excellent opportunity for such items to appear on the list!
How we calculated the points
At 10 points per question, the maximum number of points a registrant/contestant/player could possibly amass was 200. Based on the way we set it up, it was virtually impossible for anyone to do so.
There were 5 questions to which only one team would receive points. The oldest bottle of wine, furthest distance traveled The only caveat would be if more than one team had the same answer. For example, the oldest bottle of wine would be the most likely to have been a tie. Had two teams submitted a bottle of wine with the same year, they would both receive the points.
In this scavanger hunt, there were no ties, and no team got points for all 5 of those questions.
All the other questions were available for points to be awarded to all the teams. They simply had to get the item submitted correctly.
When it was decided which team got the non-shared points (if any), and ensuring the rest of the submittals were accurately submitted (which all weren’t) the totals were tallied and Amanda’s team had just 10 more points than Joe’s team. Very close!
We had several tie-breakers if any totals were the same, but didn’t have to use them.
The End
We orchestrated another Zoom© meeting at around 4:15pm EST to go through each item. All the items were explained to allow the registrants to understand how points were awarded and discuss any submittals that acceptable. Pictures where the location could not be identified is an example. Another example was that someone submitted a photo without themselves or the marker.