Mystery Weekend

Festival Location: Langley, WA, USA

Festival State: Washington Festivals

Festival Type(s): Arts Festivals, Bizarre Festivals

By: © Nelson Taylor 2009

Every February since 1984, the Whidbey Island village of Langley, a small artists' colony outside Seattle, transforms its three-block by two-block row of shops and B&Bs into a stage worthy of Broadway. Get out your best Sherlock Holmes cap and pipe, because every third weekend a murderous mystery is staged by a number of its 1,050 local residents -- town barber, banker, mechanic, etc. -- and set for solving by the 800-1,200 visitors in attendance every year.

All would-be crime-stoppers need to sign up at the Langley Visitor and Information Center at 208 Anthes Street. The price to play the two-day who-done-it is just a buck. This is how it works. At registration you will receive The Langley Gazette, which has the fictitious crime outlined in news articles. Recent headlines read: "GOLD! Lost loot lies off Langley" and "Murder silences high C's serenade." Also in your registration packet will be a clue map showing locations where written clues can be picked up. The rest is up to you, interviewing key players, eye witnesses, families of the deceased, and even shopkeeprs who might have overheard a thing or two. The presentation of the solution takes place on Sunday at 5:00 p.m. Super snoops receive free dinners, weekends at local Inns and signed work by local artists.