The brief
A ninth birthday at a villa. This is the hardest age we work with: old enough to find a children's party embarrassing, too young to be left to their own devices, and completely unwilling to pretend anything is fun when it is not. The answer is never more decor. It is giving them something to actually do.
What we built
A case to solve, and a set that looked like the file it came out of. A dusty-pink board with <i>LEONARD</i> stencilled across it, a fedora, a <i>TOP SECRET</i> stamp, <i>CASE CLOSED</i>, <i>MISSION IMPOSSIBLE</i>, handcuffs, footprints, a question mark, and a target with a red splatter reading <i>9 Years</i>. A <i>WANTED</i> poster, doors to open, and a balloon garland in cream, sand, olive, brown and black. Indoors, the food table was dressed as the crime scene itself — black cloth crossed with hazard tape, red velvet, candles, a steel briefcase, gauze, evidence photographs and an investigation report at every place.
How the day went
Every guest got a fedora, a spy ID on a lanyard and a case file. Then the work: fingerprints lifted off the evidence sheets, a body outline and numbered markers on the floor to be photographed, torches and magnifying glasses out on the lawn, and camouflage stripes painted across their faces. They were on their knees in the grass, barefoot, arguing about what a clue meant. When it got dark the party moved inside for a show under coloured light and smoke, with the small children sitting in front holding popcorn.
What the parents got
Nine-year-olds who forgot they were too old for this, and a food table their guests photographed before they ate off it. Nobody asked for a phone.
