After Little Tomato’s Harry Potter birthday party this summer we had several friends ‘subtly’ mention that they would love to see the party decorations in person. Husband and I decided to plan an adult party around Halloween in the Harry Potter theme. As the party activities at Little Tomato’s party were all very ‘child oriented’ we started brainstorming ways to make the party more adult. Being the giant puzzle nerds that we are, we settled on creating an ‘Escape Room’ in the Harry Potter theme.
Horcrux Hunt Party
The overall party theme was a hunt for horcruxes. Harry Potter has a total of (7) horcruxes, counting Harry. Our party hunt was for the (6) horcruxes that weren’t Harry.
Our guest list was just under 30 guests, so we set up three separate ‘locations’ and hid (2) horcruxes in each location. This allowed us to split up the party into three manageable groups to not overwhelm any one area.
We also felt that it was important that each horcrux would be solved differently. If all six horcruxes were solved in the same formulaic method, the party would get dully repetitive. Each horcrux had its own theme and we tried to tie it to the story as much as possible.
The Horcruxes were a laminated picture of the horcrux, as it allowed more flexibility on where they could be hidden and we could have three copies for each of our three groups to collect. Horcrux design found HERE.
Diagon Alley
Diagon Alley hid the Hufflepuff Cup and Slytherin Locket.
Diagon Alley contained a Dark Arts cabinet, a Gringotts cabinet, Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment shelves and Ollivander’s Wand shop.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry
Hogwarts hid the Ravenclaw Diadem and Tom Riddle’s Diary.
Since this area was our dining room and living room, we made this the Great Hall and Gryffindor Common Room.
Hogsmeade & Forbidden Forest
Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest hid the Peverell Ring and Nagini.
We made these locations in our basement. We set up a couple of Christmas trees and the play-stand scene that I made for Little Tomato several years ago. We used her toy table and cabinet as an Owl Post, set up the Honeydukes display I made for Little Tomato’s party on a table, and turned our bar into the Three Broomsticks.
FOOD
Herbology Bites: Veggie Tray
Veggie Pasties: Vegetarian Filled Pastries
Pub Pies: Mini Quiches
Hogs Head Cornish Balls: Meatballs in Sauce 1
Chinese Fire Balls: Meatballs in Sauce 2
Cauldron Cakes: Mini Lava Brownie Bites
Huffle Puffs: Pastry Puffs (Vanilla Filled)
Honeydukes Candy Spread
DRINKS
Hot Apple Cider, served with ‘Fire Whiskey.’
In a crockpot, add the following:
- 1 Gallon Apple Cider
- 1-2 Oranges – squeeze fresh juice into cider and add a few shaved orange skins to the cider.
- Cinnamon Sticks
- Cloves
Allow to heat for at least a couple of hours.
We’ve added mulling spices, star anise, etc. at various times, but we always use the ingredients above with rave reviews.
Butterbeer:
We used the following recipe (SUPER simple) and everyone loved it. We went though a LOT.
- 2 liter of Cream Soda (we used A&W)
- 10 pumps Caramel syrup (Starbucks)
- 10 pumps Toffee Nut syrup (Starbucks)
We made a double batch and ended up adding a third batch at the end of the night.
Polyjuice Punch:
In a large punch bowl, we added the following:
- Cherry Lime Sherbet – I like to buy the 1.75 qt ‘cardboard packaged’ version because I can unwrap the sherbet and drop the whole block into the bowl vs having to scoop the whole contents out of a plastic container. We purchased the HyVee Cherry Lime.
- Cherry limeade. We bought a 96 oz (3 qt) bottle @ Costco, and used about half of the bottle.
- Ginger Ale, 2 liter bottle (entire contents).
How did you rotate groups between the rooms or did you? After each horcrux is found in a particular room, the room would need “reset” for the next group right?
Yes, we had a short break while we reset the rooms and the guests refreshed their drinks and grabbed a snack.