Anyone who has ever spent time in a summer camp knows all about scavenger hunts. These activities usually ask you to search for certain items around the different buildings and areas of the camp with the winning team winning a small prize. Now imagine what you would think of as an adult version of this game. What if you had the chance to take part in a scavenger hunt where your prize was a $12,000 diamond ring? Would you compete? Of course you would, and so did I.
In Danbury, Connecticut, what was coined the Diamond Dash was held for three consecutive years from 2009 through 2011. The event was sponsored by Quality Gem in Bethel, Connecticut, and held in what the Downtown Danbury area, which is known in these parts as City Center.
Any teams of two were eligible to sign up and the basic point of the day that included free food, a live radio disc jockey, and a Saturday of fun all with the intentions of walking away with the diamond ring. The thing about this scavenger hunt that set it apart from any hunt you may have taken part in as a child, aside the $12,000 prize, was the use of cell phones.
When the hunt began, everyone that was registered to play received a text message with a clue about the city of Danbury. Your team would need to determine what area of downtown you needed to go to answer the clue. When you made your way to the area in which the clue was about, you would respond back to the event organizers with the answer or picture of the answer and you would get the next clue.
The organizers had a system in place that kept track of what teams got what clue right and who found all the locations the fastest. At the end of the day, the team that found all of their clue locations in the shortest amount of time was declared the winner and walked away with the prize.
I know what you’re thinking. What is keeping any team from just following another team to every location on the task list? The answer was simple. The organizers compiled a large list of clues that they could use for the competitors. To keep things on the up and up, they sent different clue locations to different people, making it impossible to get into the game and cheat your way to first place.
This event was something that everyone that took part in would remember for life. Even for those who didn’t walk away with a prize, you still walked away with a story that you can tell your kids and grand kids about. That is especially the case for the happy couple that walked away with an engagement ring.
Whether or not they decided to use it or sell it doesn’t matter as it is a memory and an experience that not many people have ever been able to claim.