New Ideas For Treasure Hunt Themes. Black Cat Treasure Hunts Strikes Twice.

Posted on: 02/05/2024

By Tim Carter (Owner of Black Cat Treasure Hunts)

A treasure hunt enquiry requesting a new theme is a thing of excitement at Black Cat Treasure Hunts HQ.  I love all enquiries, but when one is accompanied by a phrase like, "I don`t know whether you would be able to adapt the following theme into the treasure hunt?", then I am quite likely to focus on this email with laser like precision. It just so happens this happened twice in recent weeks.
The first one started in standard fashion with a subject header of `Birthday treasure hunt in London`. This was fine, but lower numbers potentially for a birthday compared say to a corporate booking can occasionally make it harder to provide a competitive quote. This was definitely not the case for this enquiry. I opened the email and read that around 100 were likely to attend and it was to be held over five rooms in a London business club. With interest piqued, and checking Google maps for exactly whereabouts in London, I came to the real game changer!  The enquirer continued by saying, "I have my own bespoke jewellery company and would like the treasure hunt to be `Gem themed`. I was sold. 
Once an agreement had been reached, I arranged a trip to London to scope out the rooms. All genuinely nice and options for all sorts of intriguing questions. Since my visit I have been busy researching various types of gems and stories relating to stolen ones, cursed ones and how they are connected to astrology. All the rooms in the club are going to be re-named to different gems and with different backstories. To top it all there will be five different routes around the rooms and with a beautiful gemstone up for grabs to the first person or couple working out the `gem code` on each route. I seriously could not be more excited to find out how this one works out. I will have to wait until July!
Just when I thought April couldn't get any better (I`m not talking about the weather here)--I get another email with the email header, Race Across The World style treasure hunt. I needed no second invitation to pivot from what I was doing to reading this further. It transpires it was from a previous client who had booked me for a team building treasure hunt around Lewes. This one in contrast was going to be across Brighton, but with the aforementioned theme.
For anyone not familiar with the TV programme Race Across The World, it involves racing from checkpoint to checkpoint which are often interesting landmarks in different countries. Teams of two are limited in budget, no mobile phones and no use of flights. Teams can get paid work to bump up their budget but that obviously slows them down in the race. This time the race is across Brighton with the aim of taking photos of the team at checkpoints. The teams (of 3) have to work out their route across the city to reach nine checkpoints at historical and interesting places. Time will be limited to just over two hours to complete and there will be heavy time penalties if you fail to locate a checkpoint. On the plus side there will be time bonuses for teams taking the most amusing and creative photos at specified checkpoints. A selection of amusing photos can be taken on route near some of the checkpoints which will also get time subtracted from a team`s final total.
The final checkpoint is going to be inside a pub where teams have to sign in at their arrival time (like in the TV programme). The big question will be whether the first team back are the winners having been the quickest or another team who have taken more photos and been to all the checkpoints.
The Race Across Brighton treasure hunt takes place tomorrow which is very exciting. I will be marking/judging it remotely from home and I`m looking forward to receiving the text to say that all the teams have set off!
The big question now is what would you choose as your theme for a treasure hunt or how would you want your vision interpreted for a treasure hunt style event? Got a big birthday, a team building event or maybe a hen/stag celebration coming up--then now is the time to get in touch.

Email:info@blackcattreasurehunts.co.uk or call me (Tim or Black Cat if you prefer!) on (01323) 655346