Beach Blast Bunko Reunion Part 3

I explained how to play bunko this week. Today, I will share how to pick winners in a large group.

Each person counts up their score such as: How many Bunkos? How many wins? How many losses? How many extras? Then, we give each item a number value.

You multiply the total of Bunkos times 5. For example, I have 3 bunkos so my score so far would be 15 points. Then, I had 10 wins. I would multiply all wins by 4 points. So, I would add 40 points to the 15 from my bunko score and I would have 55 points.

Then, you take your extras and multiply them by 3 points. So if I had 4 extras, I would add 12 points to the 55 points above giving me 67 points. However, now you take all your loses. Lets say I had 6 losses. I would multiply them by 2 which would give me 12 points. Because the points are from losses, you subtract them from the total. So, I had 67 points but I subtract the 12 points from it which gives me 55 points for my total.

Once you have a total for everyone, we lined them up by tens starting with the highest numbers. We had some players with negative numbers which meant they mostly lost.

If we had two people with the same number, we put dots on the bottom of the chair before the game started and wherever they ended up, they looked at the number on the bottom of the chair and whoever had the lowest number won and got to pick a prize first. I thought we would have more with the same numbers but actually we could have rolled a die and the person that rolled the highest number would win. That would have been easier but we learn from each thing we do.

I had people go up in groups of five to pick prizes. If I had lots of children the same age in a group, I would let an adult go to pick a prize first and separated the children so they wouldn't fight over prizes.

I took anything for prizes. I figured there were all ages from infant to 80+ so I put it all out. My daughters thought there were things I shouldn't take because they were things they wouldn't want. Here is a photo of two things my daughter thought wouldn't be taken as prizes. Actually, my cousin and his wife were thrilled with the berry bowl and "Real Salt" I am always talking about in my food posts.

You really do need prizes for all ages. I bought lots of games, puzzles, shirts with cute sayings, beach towels, food, bags of cookies or home made treats. I probably had 300 prizes. I wasn't sure how many would show up but it worked out well.

We did a piniata at the end and used it as a bribe to keep the kids in the main room of the building we used to host the party. They were great and enjoyed the piniata with all the candy and prizes.

Lastly, I'll share about the decorations. I found clearance sand buckets for $0.50 and bought a bunch in different colors. At a different store I found flip-flops for $0.50 and bought several matching colors of these. I bought the shell Leis and put enough for everyone at the table draped over the buckets. I put the buckets on luau platters and sprinkled them with polished rocks and put little crabs and other items like Tiki's and little beach balls on the tables as center pieces. I then placed the flip-flops on somewhere or sometimes in the bucket to make them look cute. In the end, I gave away all the flip-flops to family.

I placed the suckers I made (see here) in a circle around the buckets and they enjoyed eating them while they played bunko. I had a Hawaiian CD playing for ambiance and in all, it was a great reunion and everyone asked if we could make it an annual event! I am all for that!