How to Throw a Triwizard Tournament
In my many years of Young Adult Librarianship I’ve created and hosted a Harry Potter Party (or two, or three, or four!) One time for the winter holidays, once for Harry Potter’s birthday, once for Harry Potter Book Night, and the first one, for Halloween. It was at this Harry Potter Halloween party that we threw a Triwizard Tournament. I can’t take full credit for this. The main ideas came from the teens in my Teen Advisory Group (also known to some as a Teen Advisory Board.) For those of you not familiar with library lingo, a TAG is a group of teenagers who willingly come to the library in their free time and help plan future library programs. Usually they are paid in snacks and sometimes volunteer credit. In short, TAG teens are
This particular TAG, upon being told by me that we were throwing a Harry Potter Halloween party, came up with this cheap, fun, and easy idea for hosting your own Triwizard Tournament that you can modify as you want.
You will need:
A Goblet of Fire: Create or buy one. I made one from paper, glue, and other craft materials.
Dragons: I printed out pictures of four different dragons. Either print on cardstock or tape to cardboard to make it stand up. You can also purchase toy dragons, but they should not be too large.
Golden Dragon Eggs: Purchase gold Easter eggs or paint yellow Easter eggs with gold paint/gold glitter.
Human Participants: If you don’t have unpaid teen volunteer labor like I did, use pictures of Gabrielle Delacour, Cho Chang, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. print out and glue to cardboard/use cardstock again.
A Sphinx: I used teen labor to be my sphinx, but you can use a printed out photo of a sphinx instead.
Prizes: I contacted my local Barnes and Noble on behalf of my library and asked for donated Harry Potter merchandise, but you can find prizes in all sorts of locations.
Clues: (I will explain this more later, but print out your tiny clues on paper and stuff in Dragon Eggs/human hands/pictures.)
Setup:
Place your first clues inside the dragon eggs, then place eggs behind dragons. Hide the dragons around your space in four different locations. Try to make them as hard/easy to find as each other for fairness. (i.e. don’t hide one buried in a yard and another behind a decorative clear vase, for example.)
Give your second clues to your “hostages” OR place clues inside eggs behind pictures of your hostages (Cho, Ron, Hermione, Gabrielle.) If you are using photos instead of people hide your photos like you hid the dragons.
Give your last clue/riddle to your “sphinx” or place inside an egg behind your sphinx photo.
Here’s how your tournament runs:
Inform your guests that all who wish to participate should place their name on a scrap of paper and put in the Goblet of Fire. Tell them when you will be choosing the four Champions (let’s say an hour into your party.) Here’s the form I created:
Pick out four champions names at random. Encourage those not chosen to be spectators. If you want everyone to be able to participate modify the tournament as needed.
Inform the four champions that their first task will be finding a dragon and procuring its egg. They must each find an individual egg/dragon, as each egg only contains one clue. Tell them their clue is inside the egg. Here’s the first clue I used, but change your wording as suited to your party space.
Inside the egg, your clue should say something about how the mermaids have captured what they most will miss. Write a description of each individual hostage inside one egg. For example, since we did this task on Halloween, my teen volunteers were in costumes. I would say something like “your hostage is dressed like a ninja” and they had to find that specific teen volunteer. If you are using pictures/eggs write on the clue that they are looking for Cho, etc. Modify your clue from mine as needed.
Once they reach their “hostage” and present their clue, they will receive their third clue which is to find the sphinx. The sphinx I also described by their Halloween costume, but you can have them wear a special pin/shirt etc or use a sphinx photo.
The champion, upon finding the sphinx, will be told a riddle they must solve. Don’t make the riddle too difficult but don’t make it super easy. Adjust difficulty based on your age group competing. I used this riddle and my “champions” struggled a bit but one eventually got it.
Whoever solves the riddle first wins the Triwizard Tournament cup and the prizes. (I made a cup out of glitter and paper but you can also purchase one.) I also provided smaller prizes for all the participants.
Modify your tournament from what I did to suit your wishes. Add more tasks, perhaps, like procuring gillyweed or practicing summoning charms. Have a riddle contest instead of just one riddle, etc. Make it your own!
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