Joy Swift

thumb|Joys_nice_photo Joy Angela Swift (born 2 October 1956) is a businesswoman, writer and events organiser from Liverpool, who is best known as the inventor of the murder mystery weekend. Quotes I was working in PR and marketing for a small chain of hotels in the North West producing brochures We’d just done a gardening weekend. It went very well and we thought we needed to do more specialist themed weekends, because at that time in the 1980s, it wasn’t really a thing. I was driving to work one morning and I heard about a shooting at The Plaza in New York. I thought about how awful it would be if someone was shot in our hotel. Then I thought how interesting it would be for the people staying there. A bit scary, but they wouldn’t be able to leave – they would have to give evidence. Then I thought how interesting it would be for the people staying there. A bit scary, but they wouldn’t be able to leave – they would have to give evidence. But I discussed it with the chairman of the firm and told him I thought we would get a lot of publicity, and he said yes. I thought it was important for the guests to have emotional attachments to characters,” she says. “I didn’t want them to just watch a show. Now, there’s so many interactive things like escape rooms – I was doing interactive 38 years before it became commonplace, so I think I was always an innovator. I had so much interest from around the world, which proves that the murder mystery weekend idea was new. No-one else had heard of them. Joy Swift reflects on her unintended career External links Category:Living people Category:1956 births Category:Businesswomen from England Category:Women born in the 1950s