Last night one of my favorite shows was on. The Amazing Race has so many cool elements to it, from the challeneges that are based on the country they’re visiting to the dynamics of the teams to the U-Turns, Detours and Fast Forwards.
Having done a version of The Amazing Race as part of a teen travel camp I can tell you that it’s a lot of fun. If you ever want to do your own Amazing Race program there are a number of ways you can go about it.
- Families competing
- Couples competing
- College Students competing
- Groups of teens competing
- Around town
- Around the county
- Throughout the state
- With or without U-Turns, Detours and Fast Forwards
- Using their own vehicles
- Using only public transportation
- Using vans with staff drivers
- On foot only
Once you’ve decided on who, where and how, you need to figure out what. What will the challenges be? That all depends on what you have around you. Are you in the mountains, by the sea, or located downtown? Get a team of staff together and start brainstorming.
After you have decided on the challenges, approach the companies or owners of the places you are going to go and see if they will allow you to do your challenges for no fee or a reduced fee. For example, if you are having the teams kayak across a bay ask the kayak company if you can do it for free. Offer some advertisement in your marketing materials in exchange if needed. Now, if you’re having the teams go to a local park or mall and the task is to sing a duet on a karaoke machine that you already have, you won’t need to worry about fees.
A few more things to think about:
- To film the teams or not – if you only have a few teams a staff member can follow them with a camcorder and film them doing their tasks. If there are more than a few teams you can have staff or volunteers can be at the task areas filming each team as they come through.
- Team T-Shirts – having each team with different colored shirts and the logo of your race is always fun.
- Will it be a one day or multi day race?
- Will you eliminate teams or not? In a one day race I would say no. In a multi day race I would say yes if the teams are families. If the teams are composed of kids that are at your Amazing Race camp then the answer would be, no.
- Do you have a logo for your Amazing Race?
Make sure you have scouted out the course ahead of time. Also, give the teams a list of things they whould have if your staff is not staying with them the whole time. Maps, water, and money are a few of the things they may need to have with them.
Putting together an Amazing Race contest will take some work, but the program is something the contestants will be talking about for a very long time if done right.
Have you done an Amazing Race program? Do you have suggestions of your own? Leave a comment and tell everyone about it.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I love the Amazing Race. My daughter’s girl scout troop participated in an Amazing Race that lasted a whole weekend (3 days). It was great when it started, but by the end of the weekend we were all ready for it to end. I suggest that if you have families compete you keep it to 1 or 2 days. I think that would have been perfect.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Sarah, I agree with you. Any program can lose it’s luster if it goes on too long. I’m curious, did you actually eliminate teams? Were the teams girl scout troops or families?
May 15th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
We did an amazing race type theme at camp. Instead of eliminating teams we had a treasure hunt at the end of the race. To get the map each team had to solve a puzzle/riddle. Each riddle then had to be kept and the final day they had to put all the pieces/clues together to solve one final puzzle/riddle. This worked out really well, that way each day each team had to complete the course to get the clue they would need for the final puzzle.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
yeah i’m making a race for a bday party. they have to follow clues to get letters and then that’s a password for something
October 18th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Hey, I’m organizing an amazing race with my school’s Student Association. I was wondering if anybody had some ideas for cheap, safe, and fun events for teenagers?
October 21st, 2009 at 4:42 am
Hi Jon,
I am the creator of Skillastics, the product that Curt mentions in his article on “We Need More Recreation Programming Products”. I’ve created a product called Fitness Xtreme Skillastics. It was specifically designed for Middle School and High School students. As part of your Amazing Race, you could have the participants go completely around the mat before they move on to their next adventure/assignment. It gets them moving, and is fun. You can see how Skillastics is played at http://www.skillastics.com. I wish you all the best with your event!
February 23rd, 2010 at 1:36 pm
My husband and I are traveling down to Salt Lake City Utah for our one year wedding anniversary, we want to do our own little race, does anyone have ideas of things we can do?
April 7th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Hi recreation guy,i would like to hold an amazing race KENYAN VERSION,how do i go about it?
April 7th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Hi Suzanne. Do you mean a Kenyan themed race or are you actually in Kenya? I don’t know much about Kenya but holding an Amazing Race is pretty much the same anywhere. You need to figure out what the challenges will be and where. From there give the teams locations that they need to get to. Once they have arrived they will get their challenge card that will tell them what they need to do. Once they have completed the challenge they will move on. Are there specifics you need help on?
August 23rd, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I did one on our cruise last year. Horrible. Tried to plan it in one day. Planing few months ahead of time for next one.
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Putting together an Amazing Race (big or small) is no easy task. Sorry to hear about yours. I cannot imagine trying to do one on a cruise. Give me some more details when you start planning it and maybe I can give you some suggestions. I have some experience with designing and running amazing races – with teenagers that is. It’s a blast if you have everything set up ahead of time, but it does require a good amount of work.
August 27th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I am planning a Married Couples Retreat in Jacksonville, FL. I would like to do a mini Amazing Race (half day) using the couples. It is for our church. There will be about 15-20 couples ranging in age from 30 to 65. Please help… I need ideas…
August 29th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Hi Jacki, setting up an Amazing Race requires you to think up challenges for the couples which in turn requires others to run those challenges, or at least be there to verify that it has been done by the couples. This means you need a lot of people to help out. This could be people from the church but will also require business owners. It also requires you to set up clue boxes around the city and hoping that other people won’t bother them. May I suggest that instead of an Amazing Race have the couples participate in limo scavenger hunt. Team up three or four couples together and give them a set of challenges and a camera. One person of each team is assigned to be the leader and tells the driver where to go. The clues lead them to different places where the teams must perform tasks and take pictures of it (get a picture of your team in a movie theater box office, in a police jail cell, standing on a kayak, doing a human pyramid on the local high school football field, gathered around the strongest person you can find in front of a local gym, etc.) When the teams return download the pictures onto a computer to make sure they have done everything. The team with the best pictures or that returned first wins. Then show the pictures during a lunch or dinner using a projector. This type of event is a lot of fun. If you want to combine it with Amazing Race then have the Amazing Race logo on the back of the challenge cards and set up a detour or two. What I like about the “photo scavenger hunt” is that you don’t need a whole lot of staff since verification of the challenges is done by the cameras.