Abracadabra! If you’re looking for a magic-themed activity to add to your party or project AND you’ve got a group that loves solving puzzles, then this is the treasure hunt for you!!! Take your guests on a fun adventure through some magical stations while they solve some tricky riddles and clues. Read on to check out the details!
THE THEME
For our magician themed treasure hunt, we took our guests through a tour of some famous magic trick stations: the rabbit in the hat trick, the cup & ball trick, the saw a person in half trick, the linking rings trick, and the levitation trick. While we didn’t actually perform those tricks, we had a few props set up so that they looked like a magician could perform the trick there. Rather than performing the tricks, clues were hidden within each station.
The clues were more in escape room / puzzle format than actual printed clues. So, at each station, there was a riddle/clue/puzzle that the group had to solve. Each clue would send them to a new station where another clue was hidden.
To give the treasure hunt a bit more of a story line, we had an opening letter telling guests that a famous (fake) magician wanted to invite them to their Society of Magicians BUT they first had to solve a number of riddles. At the end, there was also a prize (goodie bags) to celebrate!
THE SETUP / CLUES
For the setup we created a few signs using our simple magic-themed design. Then we added a few props next to each station.
Feel free to use the signs and labels for your own personal use and/or link back to this post! 🙂
INTRO (& FINAL) CARD
The intro card is more of a letter from a “famous magician” to the guests letting them know that they have to solve a few riddles before reaching their final destination. Once they reach their final destination, they’ll join the ranks of the greatest magicians.
The first card also tells the guests to check out the rabbit in a hat trick first.
STATION 1: RABBIT IN THE HAT TRICK
In the “Pull a Rabbit Out of a Hat” trick, there is of course a black top hat and a bunny where the magician pulls a live rabbit out of a seemingly ordinary top hat. We placed a small black hat on top of one of our stuffed bunny rabbits and placed that on the table. Then we had a second black hat where we had a few print outs of some top hats. Some of the top hats had faint letters on them and some were blank. The letters spelled out “F-O-L-L-O-W T-H-E B-A-L-L . (Since we did this escape room as part of our magician party, we had several other top hats spread around the party area, but you could also just keep all the top hats together in the hat :))
The clue leads the guests to the “Cup & Ball Trick” Station.
If you’re guests are having some trouble figuring out the clue, you could give them a few hints:
- The phrase will tell you where to go next.
- Draw out dashes/underlines for each letter along with the spaces. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
- The second word is a very common article.
STATION 2: THE CUP & BALL TRICK
In the cup and ball trick, magicians have 3 cups on the table and ball. The ball seemingly falls through the cups no matter where you put them after stacking. In this puzzle, we wrote the letters S-A-W inside each cup. The guests had to figure out there were letters inside each cup then rearrange them to spell “SAW”.
The clue, of course, leads to the Saw in Half Trick.
If you’re guests are having some trouble figuring out the clue, you could give them a few hints:
- The single word will tell you where to go next.
- Somewhere around this area, there are letters.
- There are only three letters.
STATION 3: SAW IN HALF TRICK
In the saw in half trick, a magician takes a person who seemingly lies down in a long box and can saw them in half. No one really gets sawed, however, because the box has two compartments and one person in each 😉
For this trick, we set up dolls inside a cardboard box. Clever guests saw that the doll is actually not that large proportionally, but we had to work with what we had. We pre-cut the cardboard box so that it would be easier for everyone but wrapped it up in some brown paper to make the box look whole.
Inside the box, along with the two dolls, were small images of different types of rings. Behind the images of the silver rings were letters, which spelled R-I-N-G-S if arranged correctly.
The clue leads to the Linking Rings Station.
If you’re guests are having some trouble figuring out the clue, you could give them a few hints:
- The single word will tell you where to go next.
- The letters were somewhere in the box.
- There are a total of five letters.
STATION 4: LINKING RINGS TRICK
For the linking rings trick, we used a Maze Generator to create a circular maze. This generator is great because you can put in different options – depending on the age of your group, you can make the mazes harder and larger or smaller and easier 😉 Using a pencil, we spelled out L-E-V-I-T-A-T-I-O-N along the correct path and added a few other letters on areas of the maze that were incorrect. (Note: if you have a much younger group, you can skip the extra letters to make it a bit easier).
The clue leads to the last and final trick, the Levitation Trick.
If you’re guests are having some trouble figuring out the clue, you could give them a few hints:
- Somewhere in this area there is a different type of puzzle to solve.
- Solve the maze to find the word that leads you to the next clue.
- Not all letters are used.
STATION 5: LEVITATION TRICK
The levitation trick varies a bit but, in general, something is levitating above the ground. For this trick, we set up a few feathers (everyone remember that famous levitating feather?) and hid their prize on a nearby high shelf.
If you’re guests are having some trouble figuring out the clue, you could give them a few hints:
- If you could ‘levitate’ this feather, where might it go?
- If you have Harry Potter fans, they’ll likely recognize the phrase: “Wingardium Leviosa! Which should lead them to look up.
THE PRIZE & FINAL CARD
And since this was a party, we set up their goodie bags just above the levitating trick area! Our final card also welcomes the guests into the Society of Maverick’s Magicians! And so, along with their goodie bags, we also had some magician wands to pass out 😉
If you’re using this as just a treasure hunt activity,
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so much for checking out our party planning article. Hopefully it gave you some great ideas for your next celebration!
If you did enjoy this, please let us know below or follow us on Pinterest and check out our other Magic Ideas and Wizard Themed-Ideas! Also, If you haven’t already and are still looking for that perfect party theme, feel free to check out some of our other party ideas!
Happy Party Planning
