Bachelorette or Girl’s Night Out

It’s a girls night out – perhaps a bachelorette party or even just a night out on the town and you and the girls want to make things interesting ;) Why not make a little game/hunt out of the outing? It’s a hassle to have to carry a pen and paper out to a lounge/bar/restaurant however we all know that we MUST carry our cell phones and cameras on a girl’s night out/bachelorette party to capture the moments of the night (although, perhaps some of the photos may be a “what happens this night, stays amongst the group” kind of night :) TextClues is the perfect tool to use for your night out – all you need is your cell phone and away you go :)

How would this work? Start by thinking of different things you girls might want to capture and find of the night.  Once you have this in place, all you need to do is set up the clues on the easy-to-use TextClues screens, schedule the hunt for when you want it to occur, enter in the phone numbers of your friends, and away you go ;)

Here’s just a little example of how you would use the tool for your night out :)  We’ll assume that you are already at the venue that the party is to take place.

Clue: Welcome to Girls Night Out, Addition 1 of many. We’ll start easy – Head to the bar, each girl buys a shot, and get someone to take a photo of you girls. Type “done” once complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Perfect! Next, one of the girls has to find a guy to dance with her. Take a photo to capture this. Type “done” once complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Great! Get one or more girls to get on the stage or podium and dance away ;) Take a photo to capture this. Type “done” once complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Head back to the bar. Get the bartender to make you girls a special drink. Take a photo WITH the bartender. Type “done” once complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Time to head back on to the dance floor! Find a guy to give you a kiss on the cheek. Take a photo to capture this. Type “done” once complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Great job! Now enjoy the rest of the night and make it one you’ll always remember :)

When you and the girls get back home, you’ll have all of your photos to re-live the night and remember how much fun you guys all had going out. Or, if it is for a bachelorette party, the bride-to-be will have photos to always remember this night out :) TextClues can help make this a night to always remember, so try it out today and you won’t regret it!

Movie Theme Trivia Game for a Family Reunion

If you’re trying to plan some fun activities for a family reunion, how about organizing a fun  trivia game based on movies we’ve all seen. With an easy-to-use and ready made tool like TextClues you can easily involve everyone in the fun as long as they have a mobile phone. Great for small or large groups and all ages. Everything can be set up beforehand and on the day you can relax and enjoy the fun.

A movie theme trivia game is a great way to involve the whole family in a fun activity. To get your trivia game started, think about whether you want everyone to play as individuals or you could also divide them up into teams, depending on the age groups.

 

First, decide on how many questions you’d like your trivia game  to include and start jotting down some ideas. You can include movie categories based on the people attending your reunion. Lots of kids means more questions geared towards that age group, older family members would more likely remember some of the old classics, you choose your own questions. If you decide on teams, mix up the age groups so everyone has a chance to answer the questions.
Next, think of some prizes for the winners, either an individual prize or enough for the members of a team.  Movie tickets would be a good choice, maybe packaged in gift bags.

Here are a few suggestions for clues to get your trivia game started:
Clue: Which of the witches was killed when Dorothy’s house landed in Oz?
Answer: Wicked Witch of the East, Witch of the East

Clue: What is the name of the character played by Drew Barrymore in E.T.?
Answer: Gertie

Clue: What’s the name of Sid’s dog in Toy Story?
Answer: Scud

It’s easy to personalize your movie questions for your own family.  I hope you have got some good ideas for your next family reunion.

Organizing a large or small group trivia game with a movie theme can be easily made with the TextClues service. With TextClues :

  • you can monitor the trivia game from any device that is connected to the internet
  • You can enter as many mobile phone numbers as you want
  • You can track how many wrong answers a team had and base scoring on these numbers
  • The participants can enjoy an entirely unique activity where all clues and answers are completed via text messages

To see the TextClues service work on your phone try out the demo for free!

A Scavenger Hunt Down Memory Lane

Here’s an idea for a text message scavenger hunt that takes your significant other or someone close to you down memory lane. All they need is a cell phone and you can send them a special scavenger hunt that shows how much they mean to you.

Clue: Are you ready for a trip down memory lane? Go hop in the car and look on the passenger seat. Where were we when that that picture was taken?

Answer: Hawaii

Clue: Wow that was so much fun! Chateau Gonflable Remember when we learned how to surf for the first time? Drive down to chestnut street and park at our old high school. What sport did I always come watch you play?

Answer: football

Clue: Those were good times. What was our music teacher’s name?

Answer: Mr. Jacobson

Clue: He was a riot! What instrument did I love to play?

Answer: Flute

Clue: Alright get back on chestnut and drive east to the pool we used to lifeguard at during the summer. Who was the head life guard?

Answer: Jeff

Clue: Jeff was awesome. That was such a laid back job. What color was my skin after my first day back then?

Answer: Red

Clue: Ya I got pretty burnt :) Alright, head back home. But take a detour to the park where we first kissed. What street is it on?

Answer: O’Connor, O’Connor street

Clue: When you get back walk around to the backyard. Who used to always come over for a beer out here.

Answer: Davis

Clue: We really should invite him over to catch up! Now head inside the house. What kind of flowers did you get me that are out in the hall?

Answer: Lilies

Clue: Now go into the dining room. Where did we get the wooden figurine by the table?

Answer: Jamaica

Winning Message: Now come up to the kitchen. I made something special for you :)

To see how to create your own trip down memory lane try out our free demo!

American Sports Quiz

TextClues is a great way to conduct an American Sports quiz for your friends or family using text messaging. The sports questions can be easy or hard. As each question is answered correctly each participant is texted another question until all the text questions have all been answered correctly. At the end you can text them where to find their prize. The prize provides some buzz and excitement to the quiz as well as motivation to get the right answer ! !


For example I recently used TextClues with my 2 youngest sons to create some excitement for the 2 Yankees tickets I had just bought for them. By asking a few simple text questions I was able to generate some excitement for the tickets, see below. This way rather Structure Gonflable than simply giving them the tickets they felt they had earned them, a win-win and they also hopefully learned some interesting facts about the Yankees in the process which they may not have known – maybe they cheated by getting some of the answers from Google – but still it was a lot of fun. Check it out ! !
Question: What was the full name of the team that won the World Series last year?
Answer: St Louis Cardinals
Question: What year did the Yankees last win the World Series?
Answer: 2009
Question: How many World Series have the Yankees won?
Answer: 27
Question: Who was the MVP the last time the New York Yankees won the World Series?
Answer: Hideki Matsui
Question: Who is the Manager of the New York Yankees?
Answer: Joe Girardi
Question: Where do the Yankees currently stand in the Eastern Division of the American League, answer using a number
Answer: 3
Question: What team is currently in top spot in the Eastern Division, answer using the name of the city
Answer: Baltimore
After answering all the questions correctly the following text message was sent: Congratulations, you’ve won a ticket to Saturday’s Yankee game, collect from Dad ! !

With TextClues, you can be creating a great sports quiz with text messaging like the above within minutes! Try it out today.

An Amazing Race using Text Messages

Here’s an idea for a fun activity for a group of friends: set up an Amazing Race using TextClues. First, split everyone into teams. The leader of each team needs a cell phone to answer the text message challenges. You’ll want to have clues that lead the teams on an amazing race all over the city.

Before you start the race, you’ll want all the teams to compete in a contest to determine who gets a head start. This can be a trivia game or each team can dress up in matching costumes Parcours Obstacle Gonflable and you judge which team looks the best. Based on the scores, you can stagger the teams so that one leaves every 5 minutes, so they don’t all race off at the same time. You can schedule all the text hunts to start at the same time but just don’t give them the envelope with the first clue until they leave.

It’s up to you whether you want all the teams to have clues in the same order, but we do have a “shuffle” button if you want to randomize the clues for each team.You’ll want to come up with a scoring system. Each team has three tries for each clue, so you can give them 3 points if they get it right on the first try, 2 points on the second try, or 1 point on the third try. Finally, there should be a bonus for the time taken for each team to finish the amazing race and get back to the starting point. You could make this a percentage bonus to prevent teams from just guessing everything wrong but finishing first.

Here are some ideas for clues you could use:

Clue: Welcome to the 2012 Amazing Race. Check for the first clue in your envelope. (Inside the envelope you have the clue: Head west 10 blocks. What year was the church built?)

Answer: 1967

Clue: Head north to the park. Mike will be waiting for a game of bean bag toss. He’ll tell you the answer when you finish the game.

Answer: Mike is awesome

Clue: Good job. Now head to the fair trade coffee house where we always meet up with Liz. On the wall they have a picture of a plantation from what country?

Answer: Brazil

Clue: Head to the high school track and meet Jen. You guys will have to run some laps :) She’ll tell you the answer when you finish your sprints.

Answer: Jen rocks

Clue: How many tennis courts are on the other side of the school?

Answer: three, 3

Clue: Head south 6 blocks until you reach a park. What’s it called?

Answer: Jacob’s Park

Clue: Head to the baseball stadium. How many years has it been open?

Answer: 34

Clue: Use the pay phone to call Mike. Everyone on the team has to talk to him to make sure you’re all still there.

Answer: Subway

Clue: Yes hop on the subway and take it north 3 stops. Head into the shopping mall. What’s the name of the hair dresser up on the third floor.

Answer: Antonio’s

Winning Message: Alright you’re done! Now run back to the start of the race before the others make it back!

 

Try our demo to see how to create a text message amazing race.

Book Club Quiz Night

Are you looking for a fun activity for your Book Club?  How about an end-of-the-year quiz based on the books you’ve read this year.  If your Book Club chooses ten books per year from September through to June and you have  a break over the summer, a book quiz night would make a fun evening for your final meeting, especially if you usually finish with a pot luck supper.

Setting up the questions ahead of time using TextClues will make the whole evening fun for everyone.  The participants can enjoy an entirely unique activity where all clues and answers are completed via text messages.

So, now let’s go over the steps on how to set up your Book Club quiz –

First, make a list of books you want to include this could be the ten books you’ve read this season, or you could include some questions based on books you’ve read over the past few years, or even famous first lines of novels.  Then, decide how many clues you want to include in the quiz and set up the clues and answers online. This part is simple; just enter the information on our online form.

To add to the fun, decide on a prize for the winner – a good prize for a Book Club would be a gift card to a book store, everyone could put in $5 towards it.

Some sample questions might be –

    Question:  Who wrote the book Case Histories?

    Answer: Kate Atkinson

    Question:  Which City was Bury your Dead set in?

    Answer:  Quebec City

    Question:  In which book was a valise stolen from the train?

    AnswerThe Paris Wife

Or, use first lines of famous novels as the questions –

    QuestionCall me Ishmael

    Answer:  Moby Dick

    Question: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

    Answer:  1984

    Question:  It was love at first sight

    Answer:  Catch 22

The questions can be specific to your own Book Club reading list or be a more general knowledge book quiz.

Now you can schedule your quiz for the evening and sit back and watch the fun.

Trivia Night

You’re holding a trivia night with numerous people, however there are always a few challenges surrounding it.
1) If there are teams, and you are calling out the question, and the team that raises their hand first gets to answer, what do you do if multiple people raise their hand to answer the question first? Who gets to answer first?
2) If you are making individuals write out their answers individually to the questions, this requires time to collect team answers and mark the answers which wastes the time overall of people taking part in trivia night

Why not use a quick and easy program like TextClues to go through trivia night? TextClues is a text-message based program that can run on any mobile phone, so anybody with a cell phone can participate on the fun during Trivia Night :) With TextClues, you can have all of the questions and answers set up via the TextClues website. All *you* will need to do as the host is grab the cell phone numbers of participating individuals and away you go!

The best way to make this work is to have a few different rounds. One round can be trivia questions, another round can be “Name that song”, where you play a clip of a song and individuals need to figure out the title of the song. You can also use the Real-Time Dashboard on the website to determine who entered in the correct answers at the end of Trivia Night, if points are given based on the team with the most correct answers.

Let’s show you how this can be done. I’m using the word “pass” as an alternate answer to each question, so if the team does not know the answer to a question, they can type “pass” and  still continue on with trivia night

Question: Welcome to Trivia Night. Here is your first question. In what year did the War of 1812 end?
Answer: 1815, pass
Question: What was the name of the first Beatle’s album?
Answer: Anthology, pass

<song portion of trivia night>
Host: Now, we will play a clip of each song and you must type in the correct title

Question: Name song 1 <play clip of a song>
Answer: Sexy back
Question: Name song 2 <play clip of a song>
Answer: Hey Jude

At the end of it all, you can go through the answers with the crowd, while also looking at the Real-Time dashboard to see who got the most questions right.  Pretty easy to set up right? :) Try out TextClues for your next trivia night, and you won’t want to stop using it for future nights because we make it *that* easy!

Create Your Own Text Message Quiz!

What if I told you that TextClues can act as a tool to learn languages, facts or any subject that interests you? Well people are constantly coming up with new and interesting ways of using the service to their benefit, not always focusing on scavenger hunts.

One of the most interesting is to take personal quizzes. This is great when your a studying a subject or learning something new. You can write out a list of questions, along with the answers, that you should know on the subject you’re studying. Then you can schedule a mobile “quiz” sometime next week or in a few days. This way the test may be somewhat unexpected and you likely won’t have your materials with you.

Later you will be able to go back into your TextClues account and see how you did. If you needed a few guesses for some of the questions maybe those are the areas that you should be focusing on. It’s a great way to assess how much you’ve learned and it’s easy to do anywhere. You can quickly answer a few questions on the bus or while you’re riding the elevator.

If you want to know more about the TextClues service check out some info here or try our free demo.

And don’t forget to share with us how you use TextClues!

Pub Crawl Scavenger Hunt

Planning a night out with your friends? Give the night some direction and even some competition by adding a scavenger hunt to the mix.

Adding a scavenger hunt will make your pub crawl one to remember. Everyone will be
rushing to their destinations laughing and joking about the clues set out along the way.

Pub crawls are perfect for scavenger hunts because bars and pubs always have unique features that can help create a funny and entertaining hunt.

Organizing a large group scavenger hunt but can be made easily with the text clues service.  With textclues you:

  • Don’t need to set up physical clues at each destination that may get damaged, taken or misplaced
  • You can monitor the scavenger hunt from any device that is connected to the internet
  • You can enter as many numbers as you want
  • You can track how many wrong answers a team had and base scoring on these numbers
  • Your hunters can enjoy an entirely unique activity where all clues and answers are completed via text messages
Try the Demo now!

Now let’s go over the steps to actually create your pub crawl scavenger hunt.

Make a List of Pubs You Want to Visit

You probably already have an idea of what area you want for the pub crawl. The pubs should preferably be in walking distance of each other and pick the bars with the most character or historical significance.

Head to Each Bar

Now it’s time to head to each bar to talk with the staff and start designing your clues. Talking to the staff, preferably the manager, is important to make sure that there will be capacity for all your participants. You should also take this time to try and negotiate a possible group rate for the event.

At this point you should also start collecting interesting facts and questions about the bar for your hunters to answer. Looking around for anything that catches your eye is a good way of coming up with quick clues for your participants. It’s also really fun to find out who will be working during the night of the pub crawl and ask questions about the staff (like a middle name or an interesting fact). If you let the staff know what you’re doing they may help you come up with a few clues themselves.

For this type of hunt the winner should be based on the least number of guesses rather than the first one through the hunt. This way the group can stay for a set period of time at each bar. The scavenger hunt should also be performed in teams which is a lot more fun than doing a scavenger hunt individually. You can tally up the team with the least number of guesses the night of the scavenger hunt or the day after and give out the prize.

Set up the Clues Online

Now it’s time to head back home and set up the clues and answers online. This part is simple; just enter the information on our online form. You can add a few different options for each answer and any answer that is 90% correct will still work! This is good if someone makes a slight misspelling of the answer.

Decide on the Prizes and Scoring System

A scavenger hunt is always more fun when there is a prize at the end. Decide on a prize that is related to the group you’re planning the hunt for. Having a funny or ironic surprise prize is a good way to go. Gift certificates are also great prizes. If one of the bars helped you out with your scavenger hunt you may consider getting a gift certificate for them.

There are few options for deciding on the winner of the scavenger hunt. The first way is the first team to reach the end. This might be a good option if you want to spend the majority of the time in the final bar. We recommend having a set period of time and base the winner on the team that got the least “try agains”. If there is a tie you could solve it with a coin toss.

Schedule the Hunt and Wait for the Fun

Now you can schedule you hunt for the big night and decide on the teams. Everyone is sure to have a blast.