The Pre-Game Checklist Every Scavenger Hunt Needs

Almost nothing that goes wrong in a scavenger hunt goes wrong because the tasks were bad. It goes wrong because of something nobody checked the day before — a geofence too tight for the GPS signal near a building, a magic link nobody opened on an actual phone, a phone at 12% battery by the second stop. None of it is exciting to prepare, and all of it is what actually determines whether game day runs smoothly.

Route and locations

• Walk the full route in person, not just on a map — some paths look fine from above and take twice as long on foot.
• Stand at every location-locked task and confirm the arrival radius is forgiving enough for real GPS drift, especially near tall buildings or under tree cover.
• Double-check that nothing on the route is closed, under construction, or otherwise inaccessible on the actual day.

Groups and access

• Generate every group's magic link ahead of time and open at least one on a phone, not just a laptop.
• Confirm the game itself is set to start on time, or that whoever's running it knows exactly when to flip it live.
• Have a plan for late arrivals — a group that shows up after the rest without one still needs a way in.

Devices

• Every organizer's phone charged, plus a battery pack — grading from a dead phone isn't grading.
• A rough idea of signal strength along the route, and a fallback (paper clues, a phone number to call) for the one dead zone every outdoor route seems to have.

Grading readiness

• Whoever's grading agrees beforehand on what counts as a pass for the ambiguous tasks — see the grading guide for more on this.
• The grading queue is open and someone's watching it before the first task unlocks, not five minutes after.

Weather and safety

• A backup plan for bad weather — an indoor fallback, a shortened route, or a hard call on rescheduling.
• Emergency contact information collected for at least one person per team, and a way to reach every group at once if plans change mid-game.

Timing

• A buffer built into the schedule — the fastest team will finish faster than expected, and the slowest team always takes longer than planned.
• A decision on what happens to a team that finishes early: a bonus task, a waiting area, or just permission to relax until everyone's back.

The finish

Get everyone back to one place at the end rather than letting the hunt fade out as groups trickle in one by one. Have the leaderboard ready to show the moment the last submission is graded, and if there's a recap — final standings, a few of the best photos, whatever stood out — have it ready to go right then, while everyone's still standing there together. That's the moment the whole checklist was actually for.