Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games

My time is ticking. Any feedback will be welcomed. I'm scaling it down to 3 aestheticians since I initially sent my first post. I think it was a little overkill. I'm also thinking about inviting a couple of extra people (maybe 10 - 12)
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This is my first one! I’m planning a Death by Chocolate Murder Mystery at the end of January. I’m working on the timeline of events and have a couple of questions.

I’m inviting 8 ladies from the office (no dinner) and I am bringing in 4 aestheticians (my sister is one) for this big event. Is that too many aestheticians?

The spa treatments can begin any time after guests arrive. The only real break in spa treatments I can see is when they have to find the hidden weapons that no one can have their feet soaking or getting a massage at that time. Correct? (Note: when I know someone is dying, anyone getting a facial will come out to see what is going on. I will ensure all aestheticians know certain things that will be happening so no one misses anything.)

The living room will be for the pedicures and manicures, which is open to the kitchenette (the waiting room) and the dining room (massage and facial area) is just off the kitchen.

I was thinking of having one hour services offered (which everyone will book ahead of time – this will also determine how many aestheticians I need). 4 people will be pampered and 4 people will be scheming. Do you think that is too long for a spa treatment and doesn’t leave enough time for mingling? If not, I was thinking of splitting up the pedicure station (move to a different area for nail polish) so if someone wanted to talk to you, they could “move in”.

I could also replace the “dinner” with a “hot tub”, but that might change the mood of the party as everyone will have to get out of costume and might not want to get out of the hot tub.

I’ve enjoyed reading the forum and I am going to use some of the ideas mentioned. Please let me know what you think of my thoughts?

Thanks
Wendy

Okay Wendy, let me see if I can figure this out for you. I am glad that you changed the number of aestheticians from 4 to 3, as I think this will work much better. This way you only have 3 people having services done and 5 playing. I had put off replying before while I tried to figure out if your party would work with 4. I didn't want to say yes, when my gut feeling was that was too many. I had emailed a couple people I knew that had done services during their party to find out what they thought. None had used that many and all felt it might be too many, especially with only having 8 guests.

Now I would not start the services until after the murder, which happens about 20-30 minutes into the evening. It would also be best if you were doing the services in open rooms so people having services done can still hear and interact with those playing. Think large salon where people can still talk to each other while getting pampered.

I think appetizers laid around the rooms would be good, but if you don't want to do that, then let your guests bring chocolates and have creative places to lay them out for everyone to partake.

If you were to do a hot tub, I would wait until after the game. There is no reason that you can't play the game and then hang out and soak afterward!

I hope this does help you, but whatever you decide, I am sure you can adjust if something doesn't seem to be working right.

Thank you so much for getting back to me. I'm off and running. Sorry for the late response but I wanted to wait to see if I needed any more direction.
I think I'm good ... for now.