I love the fun side of Halloween: the dress up, the mystery, and the make believe. So Fairmont Vancouver’s latest seasonal attraction: Castle Confidential is right at my alley.
They’ve teamed up with local game experts Vancouver Mysteries for this seasonal interactive experience. The evening combines theatre, puzzle solving, live entertainment, and cocktails. All within the hotel’s legendary 14th floor. Truly, it is worth attending just to be able to explore these luxury executive suites. Most of us will not be spending the money to stay overnight in one of these units, so to be able to catch a glimpse of it is surely worth the event ticket price.
The event runs for two nights only, across staggered timeslots. The premise is that you are sent back in time to the early 20’s, so are invited to dress the part. This is an era of prohibition and the need to enjoy cocktails only in secret bars or the safety of someone’s home. In this case, you are invited as a guest to the home of Lady Fairmont, and are allowed to drink then and there. As the evening progresses you are tasked with finding her missing nephew.
Guests are given the ability to explore the rooms, opening drawers, rifling through books, and just snooping around. There are also live actors to engage in/with, so should you choose.
I won’t be going into too much detail of the actual experience, should you decide to attend one such showing in the future. No spoilers.
But some highlights include being able to try out the theremin. This is a unique electronic musical instrument that is played without any physical contact, but uses two metal antennas that create electromagnetic fields, which the player’s body disrupts to control pitch and volume. Being treated to live music, as well as three different cocktails and small bites across three of the five different rooms we visited.
Once the mystery is solved, guests are then invited to head downstairs to the ballroom for a reception. Where we were able to enjoy more drinks at the cash bar, as well as a graze on a buffet of charcuterie, roasted vegetables, flatbread, and popcorn.
Our group was the first of the season and night, which resulted in us becoming the guinea pigs. As a testament of the show runners, they learn from our run and adapted and adjusted as the games went along. This we found out when exchanging notes for the session that came after ours.
For instance, we over thought everything. We were so focused on winning that we thought everything was a clue, and that catching the actors in lies were part of the game. The result was extra probing and inquisitive questioning, to the point where we stumped a few of the actors. But apparently they got their script and backstory together by the time round two came along. There were also a few rooms that didn’t have any game elements and we were eventually told we could just sit and relax therein.
The only feedback is that it would have been nice to have a bit more of a backstory and an explanation to better set up the evening. An introduction to say that this was more of an experience as opposed to a whodunnit. And that only some rooms will have mysteries to solve, and to what degree that would be. However, given the amount of cocktails and the strength of each glass, I do suspect that they made things a little less challenging, so that everyone could keep up and play along.
However, for those who aren’t drinking, there were non-alcoholic mocktails available as well.
We started off with the glass of welcoming Prosecco as we caught a glimpse of the fabled ghost that haunts Fairmont Vancouver: The Lady in Red.
Then we had a sweet raspberry number served in a coup, as we got to know each other and the detective that just happened to be invited to the home of Lady Fairmont as well.
And our third glass was a lime margarita as we enjoy the soulful stylings of a ghost serenading for us.
Overall, this was such a fun night and something so unexpected coming out of Fairmont Vancouver. If you missed out on the two nights this year, be sure to bookmark this and look out for the ones next year.
Fairmont Hotel Vancouver
900 W Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC V6C 2W6
(604) 662-1900
fairmont-hotel-vancouver.com
