How to Beat the Buzz Wire Game

There's tension in the air. You can feel the electricity. All eyes are on you. It seems such a short distance, but the minutes are adding up. Your hand wavers - a centimetre this way, a centimetre that way, and it'll all be over.

Everybody has tried or at least seen the giant buzz wire game in action. Your mission is to guide the hooped wand carefully along the wire, without touching it. Make contact, and it'll buzz loudly to let you (and everybody else) know you've lost. Beat The Bleep to win a prize.

This funfair side stall is one of the toughest fairground challenges out there, requiring a paradoxical combination of speed and patience, calm and confidence, steadiness and nerves of steel. The challenge cannot be won with any one skill alone - especially if you're playing against the clock.

As an excellent game for two-player head-to-heads, big team efforts, or a single-player time trial, you'll want to be sharp of mind and steady of hand before taking on the buzz wire game. But how do you defeat it?

Beat the Buzz Wire - Top Tips

First things first - observe the twists of the wire before picking up the wand. Prepare yourself for the racecourse ahead. You'll want to know what's around the corner when you triumphantly beat that first twist. Don't get ahead of yourself! Only once you've entered a state of extreme meditative calm should you reach for that wand.

Depending on your event, there might be certain rules in place. Teambuilding days might have different beat-the-buzzer rules than other corporate events, for example.

You might decide that the player can only use one hand to guide the wand. This is not ideal, but it can be done.

You might personally spend several weeks before the party practising your coordination at home, carefully carrying full glasses of water across the living room with one hand behind your back! If you put the time, when it comes to the big day, you should be more than ready for a single-handed buzz wire challenge.

As with all precarious tasks, like mini golf and Dodgems, you should focus solely on the matter at hand. When you're moving the wand along the wire, don't glance ahead to the next turn, or back to the previous twists. Concentrate on each hill and dip as you reach it. A buzz wire champion conquers a single moment in a time.

You might have seen clips of cyclists celebrating too early, only to be pipped at the finishing line. There is a lesson here for would-be buzz wire victors. The tension will climb as you turn that last curve, but don't let it get the better of you - don't play to the crowd. This is between you and the wire.

This is as far as we can take you - the rest up to you. Most important of all: don't let your opponents read these instructions.

If - thanks to our expert advice - you now feel up to it, you can hire the Giant Wire Buzz from We Are Tricycle for your next carnival, event or party, along with dozens of other classic and unusual fairground rides.