I Made This Anime Convention Scavenger Hunt for My Family (and You Can Use It for Free)
When I bought tickets to Anime NYC, I was afraid that my daughters’ first convention would be overwhelmingly chaotic. I started my own competition tradition ten years ago with New York Comic Con, and I’ve attended countless conventions since then, but Anime NYC was the first time my 15-year-old twin daughters had attended such a large event. To help, I was planning on downloading a scavenger hunt to guide them through the conference room, but I couldn’t find it anywhere online. So, I stayed up late the night before Anime NYC and did an anime convention scavenger hunt myself.
Like New York Comic Con, Anime NYC is held at the Javits Center, a 3.3 million square foot convention facility. Anime NYC drew over 100,000 people in 2024, the largest crowd in its seven-year history, and if you’ve been to a cons before, you know how overwhelming and overwhelming they can be: countless events, panels, booths, and advertisements compete for your attention as you walk for miles through the crowd. They are not suitable for beginners, and Anime NYC is no exception.
My goal for the scavenger hunt was to give our exploration more focus and take my mind off my fatigue, and it worked. This made the experience much less stressful for my family and much more fun. I may never hold another convention without him.
Customize this comic book style scavenger hunt
You can download this free comic and anime convention scavenger hunt to use at your next convention, or use it as inspiration to create your own. The scavenger hunt is broken down into three parts:
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The first section has easier searches, each worth one point. With several bonuses included, the first section of the scavenger hunt is worth a maximum of 15 points .
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The second section features tasks that are more difficult or require more social interaction with strangers, and are worth two points each. Taking into account bonuses in the second section, 20 points are possible.
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The final section involves filming videos of the group members interacting more actively with the community, each worth 5 points. Taking into account bonuses, this section brings up to 25 points .
The scavenger hunt format follows most comic, anime, and gaming traditions, so you should tailor it to your group and interests. For example, you can replace other comic book or video game characters, or increase or decrease difficulty levels depending on age (or nerdiness). My family is black and I love noticing these characters in anime, so one of our options involved asking strangers if they could name five black anime characters.
How long does a scavenger hunt take?
For adults, you can expect the scavenger hunt to take about 4-6 hours. With children, you can expect the search to be slower depending on how much walking they can handle. My family spent about six hours at Anime NYC, and out of a possible 60 points, the winning team scored 48 points to the losing team’s 47 points.
How to Host Your Own Scavenger Hunt
Of course, you can make your own scavenger hunt as unique as you like. The simplest scavenger hunt requires only a list of items to find or tasks to complete, and some basic rules regarding teams, time limits, and prizes. If your group is competitive, there are a few general questions to consider:
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Can teams form alliances?
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Can teams sabotage each other?
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Can teams spend money on clues? (This was a particular point of contention during my family’s scavenger hunt, as my team paid for an anime voice actor’s autograph as a bonus point.)
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And a pre-agreed tiebreaker
Scavenger hunts are a great way to organize conventions.
One of my favorite productivity quotes is: “There’s only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time.” It reminds me that any big accomplishment can be made less daunting and more manageable by breaking it down into smaller tasks. I try to remember “one piece at a time” when training for a marathon, writing a book, or convincing my daughters to love conventions as much as I do: if I organize your tasks and focus on the one in front of me, the goal will happen along the way . Ultimately, scavenger hunts can serve as a great task management tool – essentially a checklist, but disguised as fun – and I plan to use them more often for events like vacations, museums and trips, and when I can’t find something something suitable. one online, I hope to find time to continue creating them myself.