Description

Halstead Gallery's biggest night in years: the unveiling of The Nightingale's Hour, a masterwork presumed lost for decades, in front of three hundred guests and a room full of press. At the exact moment the curtain is meant to rise, the entire gallery loses power — ninety seconds of total darkness. When the lights come back on, the frame is empty.

Gallery Director Rosalind Whitfield has brought you in quietly, as discreet outside consultants, before the insurers start asking questions she can't yet answer and before this becomes a public scandal.

What you get: A full printable evidence packet — a facilities incident log, guest statements, a security camera still, conservation lab records, and a guest list of real suspects — paired with a real digital gate into a professional art-restoration network, unlockable only once you've found the right credentials hidden in the physical evidence.

Built specifically for a group to split up: four distinct threads (the blackout itself, the painting, the conservation lab, the guest list) mean a group of 4–6 can divide into pairs, each take a thread, and reconvene to compare notes before naming who's actually responsible.

• Format: Printable PDF evidence packet + web-based digital investigation
• Players: Built for a group of 4–6, working in pairs across the four threads
• Typical solve time: 110–140 minutes
• Framing: You're discreet outside consultants, brought in personally by the gallery's director — not police, and not yet a matter for the insurers

Every institutional detail — the facilities reports, the guest statements, the conservation records — is built to hold up under real scrutiny. Nothing hands you the answer; everything has to be assembled.