DIY Triwizard Tournament
Eternal glory! That’s what awaits the student who wins The Triwizard Tournament, but to do this, that student must survive three tasks. Three extremely dangerous tasks.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is my favourite book/film of the Harry Potter series and there was no way known that I wasn't going to include it in my Harry Potter Birthday Party. Given that the premise of the party was to play board games I wanted to incorporate an actual Triwizard Tournament before the muggle games began. But how does one re-create the tournament when you have a distinct lack of Hungarian Horntails, a Black Lake and enchanted maze? Follow my basic DIY to create your own fun (with zero body count).
The Prize
Before we go rushing into the games we need to know what we are really competing for.
In the book the winner receives a cup, 1000 Galleons and 'eternal glory'. At my party they received a 'cup', one Galleon accompanied by one Sickle and one Knut; and, well we will have to see how long the 'glory' lasts for.
So this is what the Cup looks like.
ohhhhhhh, ahhhhhh. So blue and radiant. Let's see how we can get this level of magic at home. Well, as always you are welcome to buy a very good looking replica for $239.99; or, a tiny charm bracelet version for $44.99; or, you can make one for under $10 doing it the dodgy way.
Once more I turned to the supplier of all things weird and cheap The Famous Arthur Daley's and purchased myself an illuminated cocktail glass. I have only ever seen these cups at New Years Eve and on Party Buses, so I was pretty happy that they were available in February and in broad daylight.
I also purchased some blue gemstone stickers - but the kind where the rows of gems are joined together and can be torn apart easily. Something similar to this.
Using my trusty green painters tape I carefully stuck on three parallel rows of tape ensuring to make these as straight as humanly possible.
I then removed the middle line of tape and used the other two to guide the placement of the gems. You may need to freestyle with this part but the good news is that the stickers can be moved pretty easily. Just make sure you don't space out the letters too much. The round letters are a little more difficult but can be done!
And there you have it. Barely indistinguishable from the real Cup.
The First Task: The Golden Egg
The first task is designed to test your daring; Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard.
The objective was to retrieve a golden egg that was being guarded by a dragon. As I mentioned I could not get Charlie to spare be a Hungarian Horntail but I did have access to a golden egg, a golden Easter egg that is!
Whilst the guests ate and drank in the house I snuck into the backyard and got to work setting up was is commonly reffered to as an Easter Egg Hunt. I had one large golden egg and a couple of bags of small red, blue and gold eggs. The objective was to be the first person to find the large golden egg.
I expected better from two accomplished wizards such as Harry Potter and Bellatrix. It honestly took 10 minutes to find the egg... and Fred was the victor!
The Second Task: Recover What Is Lost
Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them.
I am going to admit that between all the crafting and party planning I didn't quite have time to figure out how I could pull off tethering guests loved ones to the bottom of a lake without drowning so I went full on dodgy with this one.
The premise was that the guests had lost a number (between 1 and 20) which I had written on a piece of paper, and they had to find it by guessing! Like in the real tournament, guests were competing at the same time to get there first. When I said GO, they started shouting their numbers. When the lost number was called correctly, that person one the task.
So cheap, so much fun, no bubble-head charm or gillyweed required.
The Third Task: The Maze
Oh, find the cup, if you can, but be careful. You might just lose yourself along the way.
If you are reading this I am of course assuming you have seen Goblet and none of this is new to you. So, knowing what you know, you know the third task has a fatal ending for one of the four champions. Wanting to keep my party upbeat I decided the third task should be to beat Cedric to the Triwizard Cup and save his life!
Not having a maze handy I turned to the trusty internet to find a maze-like puzzle. Using my nifty Photoshop skills I put together a very crafty maze. The guests were each given a coloured marker and a copy of the maze face down . When I signalled, they flipped the paper and raced to the centre...
Queenie won the race in about 30 seconds flat. She was awarded the Cup, the coin and the glory! (although it looks like Bellatrix was throwing a lot of shade following her defeat...)
