The Murder Mystery Company in Charlotte

I recently saw the Charlotte, NC group perform a show in Wake Forest (if you can call it a performance) and it was a very long and drawn out four hours. I have been to other professional murder mysteries and I was excited to hear there would be a show in Wake Forest. But I didn’t realize the poor quality and execution of this company.
I would not call this group of for professional as they just guided the improv from the ticket holders. The 25 or so suspects were just the audience and that was a lot of people to keep track of and try to remember who was who. Not everyone is good at improv so having the show based on audience participation is just a recipe for disaster.
There were four cast members but one of them «Howie» didn’t do anything in the show besides take photos of the other three. This performance was more like one of those Murder Mystery boxes you can buy to have a party at your house with friends. It was missing the storyline development by the cast. The cast needed to take the lead and be the show. Most of the night had the audience mingling with the other audience members to share clues. There were two sessions of the mingling which just dragged on this show.
Lots of the audience left early and I wanted to as well but I hoped it would get better but it never did. At the end they give out some awards to the audience members who participated. Then they pick a winning table. I’m not sure how that was determined as my table had the same suspect and reasoning and it was not acknowledged as figuring it out. I am sure other tables figured it out as well.
I would not recommend this company at all and would look for a better option if you enjoy murder mysteries.

If you’re looking for a show, save your money. You may even be called up to participate and be a character. I feel bad for those people that paid to get in and were called to be characters. When we arrived at SMS Catering, we were given a photo opp with props and received the pictures at the end of the night. After we finished with pictures, they took us to our seats and we were told to help ourselves to their bagged lettuce and toppings. When the «show» started, they set up characters and introduced everyone involved. After a five minute skit, we were told to go talk to the different characters and find out who the murderer was after we were given very little information. It was a game of clue without information. I was very disappointed. Thank goodness we bought groupon tickets for $ 25 each instead of the originally printed $ 75 each. I will take $ 5 from anyone else interested in going to this place and save them $ 70. The food was very bad and the venue was very small for the amount of people there. This is a scam for people trying to do new things. I will never go back nor recommend any to this. Hopefully this is helpful for others.

I have been to a legit Murder Mystery Theater show in LA and this is NOTHING like that. I bought a amazon local deal and «upgraded» to VIP. What a joke. This one was held at a catering site SMS in Charlotte 1764 Norland Rd not the restaurant the other reviews are referring too. Not only was the «upgrade» not worth a dime — it granted us two $ 20 photos for the $ 80 cost to upgrade (I should have just purchased the photos there and skipped the upgrade). Because I have been to real dinner theater I have something to go by and this «show» was not a show, rather people on a stage with a microphone (it was way too loud) in costumes.
Granted, we didn’t expect much for the dinner, but did anticipate sit down service. The dinner consisted of BUFFET style service and if you opt for the vegetarian selection… you get spaghetti, BUT you still have to stand in the buffet line (even though the spaghetti is not there to serve yourself). A server brought us out plates of spaghetti, but were told if we wanted a roll — we had to stand in line, so there we stood in line, for 15 minutes while our spaghetti grew cold. I spent almost $ 200, for 4 discounted tickets and 4 «upgrades» which were supposed to get us in on the action. Not only did the theme change from 80’s to 20’s days before the dinner — we were scrambling for new outfits the day of the dinner but it was amateur to say the least. Top it off, we were served by ourselves, 4 miniscule salads, what equated to $ 3 in cold spaghetti dinners and cold, hard dinner rolls. Plus the «show» which was really just an attempt at a live Clue game. Save your money & don’t waste your time.

I bought tickets on Groupon and was extremely excited to attend.
The Murder Mystery Company itself was extremely cheesey. Some guests that attended were given roles and they didn’t all play the part as well as one could hope. It was difficult to interview people as it wasn’t as obvious who people were. I felt the costumes and setting implied that this was all an act and not worth the effort of a real wedding.
The restaurant where it was held, Beauregaurds, was another disappointment. The food was editable but completely lacked any kind of flavor what so ever.
All and all this was a complete let down.

I came to Beauregard’s for their mystery dinner theater on Saturday evening. I was surprised they offered something like this since the set-​up was less than ideal. We were suppose to mingle around and interview the suspects, but it was tough to identify suspects because 1) many people were in costume, 2) they did introduce themselves but the mic was very quiet so it was extremely difficult to hear 3) There was very little room in between people and there was a big column blocking the main stage area.
Upon are arrival we had salads waiting for us. This was bagged iceberg shredded lettuce, a mealy tomato, and a cucumber. This was beyond uninspired but the dressing was tasty (though bottled most likely). Our group mostly ordered the prime rib and two had the blackened chicken pasta. I thought the prime rib was better than expected. It was a tad on the small/​thin side but it was cooked right (I asked for rare) and it was served with a nice baked potato and some au jus. I tried the pasta which wasn’t amazing, but it certainly wasn’t bad. The dessert was a pineapple orange pound cake which I found to be an odd choice. I was expecting it to be a signature dessert so I thought it might be good. It wasn’t. It was served with canned pineapple and was overwhelmingly sweet. Why not serve chocolate cake, cookies, mousse? Those are choices more people are likely to enjoy.
The service was friendly –if a bit frantic. I felt bad for the servers since there wasn’t a ton of room in the first place and now they had to work around people during the inquisition phase when people were walking around. I had to ask a couple times for some horseradish but in general I never wanted too long for anything. My drinks remained full. though the water had a bit of a funny pipe taste.
The show was bad. Costumes were super cheesy and the storyline very confusing. There were a ton of characters– maybe giving each table a list might help, or even name tags. Some actors were better than others but oddly enough their audience appointed actors did the stand-​out job. There was very little actual show time and most of the time consisted of us having to go around and interview actors… or audience members. Which sounds more fun than it is because you wanted to enjoy your dinner. They took some cute pictures in the beginning and tried to get us to buy them for $ 20– but I wish they spent the money on a better production or layout.
We had fun since we came as a group, but overall half of us (and several others in the audience) left early, as it was rather disorganized and seemed to drag on. I would not pay full price, and I would not return.

We came as part of the Murder mystery as well, and let me say DON’T BOTHER WASTING YOUR MONEY. Thankfully, we bought tickets on half off depot for $ 29.00 a person and cant even imagine that they charge $ 60 normally. If we had paid full price, we would have been livid. Its basically a «stage» set up in the front of a restaurant in a not so good area of town and I use «stage» loosely. It was a sheet covering where the actors change.
Also, on their website they offer «gold» seating for an additional $ 12 per person for a total of $ 72.00 pp. If you don’t shell out the extra money, prepare to sit there and watch the gold table seating be served first and eat their dinner before you. Not to mention, that no where on their website does it say that it contains adult content. We had to learn this the hard way as we brought our 12 year old daughter and left right after dinner was served. Oh and to boot, they mention nothing about the seating arrangement as well. Prepare to stare at the face of a stranger the entire night as you are seated at a table with 9 other people. We asked to move to another table and was told that we couldn’t. And lastly, they charge for soda… as if $ 29.00 a person isnt enough. As far as the 3 «course» meal, it consisted of shredded lettuce as your «salad», and prime rib that was mostly fat, and a slice of a store bought orange pineapple cake. We have contacted the Murder Mystery show and requested a refund, let’s see if they will.

Performance was fun, if VERY cheesy and predictable. Characters were over the top goofy, but committed to the role. My date and I had a good time, and I might go again for the Groupon price that I got, but not for full price. The food at Beauregard’s was acceptable, but just barely. I realize that the Murder Mystery Company has no control over the quality of the food, just sharing for those that are wondering.
Full disclosure: after attending, The Murder Mystery Company emailed me asking me to write a Unilocal review, and they’d give me tickets for $ 20/​person for a future performance. I don’t normally Unilocal,and probably wouldn’t have written this review without the incentive. That said, this is an honest review, and I wouldn’t change it even for free tickets.

Murder Mystery Review (previously reviewed under Beauregard’s):
My date and I had discount tickets to Beauregard’s Murder Mystery performance. For the price (even after the discount) I expected it to be much more entertaining than it was. This was my first time to Beauregard’s, but not my first time to a dinner theater-​type performance. The food: We were served a house salad (no choice of dressing) choice of: prime rib, chicken pasta, or baked ziti. My date and I had the prime rib and baked ziti, which wasn’t that great (for $ 29 a plate) also, it was cold by the time it was served. Others at our table had the chicken pasta, which looked better than our entrée choices. A compliment: the beer and wine prices were reasonable at 3.95 a glass for wine.
The show: I had been to one of these shows once before, and it was excellent, therefore I have something to compare it to. In comparison, the murder mystery show was amateurish. It is very much an «improv group.» It looked as if maybe they had trouble filling some spots, and rounded up some High School theater students.
The restaurant was packed, and for the price paid, I expected more. More could have been done with the set/​costumes, audience etc. Definitely do not pay full price for this show, I’m sure there are other dinner shows out there.