As your company prepares to head back to the office full time, events are making a full time comeback as well! In order to create both fun and informative events, following these tips and tricks will help you plan the best event. Be sure to cover all of your bases, from the marketing before the event begins to sending out the post event surveys. These 20 corporate event ideas will help you pull off a successful event.
Corporate events can come in a variety of ways, all of which are engaging and interactive. Plan your event depending on what your guests want to see and take away from your event. Corporate events are able to be molded and created in a way that they can cater right to the needs of your audience. These 15 ideas will help you create an event that is both fun and engaging, while also hitting all of your pre-set event goals!
Corporate events are a great way to show off your company or business branding. Your company’s brand can be shared on a variety of items, such as swag bags, event signage and marketing materials! Be sure to use your company colors, logo and tone, to really make your event stand out. Your guests will recognize your brand as they enter the event, and their swag bags filled with goodies will remind them of your event and will remind them of the lessons and takeaways from your event!
Virtual entertainment can be done through a variety of ways! Some virtual entertainment events could include a guest speaker, a concert or comedian. Your guests deserve to relax and enjoy themselves at the conclusion of your event, and virtual entertainment is a great way to do so! Asking your guests what they would like to see in terms of virtual entertainment will ensure that your guests will enjoy themselves after a day of learning.
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Many of us have seen the success of Pokémon Go, which is a form of augmented reality. Augmented reality is an interactive experience that uses elements from the real world and incorporates them into a game or experience. The great thing about both virtual and augmented reality is that it can be customized right to your event! Augmented reality allows your guests to get up and walk around your event, all while connecting with one another!
Virtual reality has become extremely popular over the past few years, and companies are working it into their events. People tend to learn better when they can become immersed in their training, and virtual headsets can do just that! Your guests can choose which world they want to explore, and the use of the headphones puts them right into the middle of the action. Virtual reality can also be used for hands-on training for your company, which is a new and exciting way of training your guests!
Events typically set up the seating arrangements in a way that the speaker is at the front of the room, possibly on a stage or platform, and all of the guests are in rows of seats, facing the speaker. By creating an amphitheater seating, you can create a more comfortable and relaxed experience for you and your guests. Guests will be able to see their peers as they learn, ask questions and listen to one another talk. By sitting in a circle and putting the attendees at the center, the learning experience becomes more relaxed, and your guests will remember the experience long after the event is over.
Food events are always great for team building. It can be as simple as a picnic or as fancy as a tea party. Of course, rather than just eating, it’s great for productivity and creativity to get the guests involved in making the food too. It can be a straightforward cooking workshop, class or demonstration, or you can increase the stakes by making it a cooking competition or cook-off. You could take the lead from other companies that have held successful corporate events with unusual foodie twists. Hiring a nitrogen ice cream bar will be a point of interest for your guests, and will allow them to engage with the creation of a delicious treat!
As so many companies are office-based, it’s a welcome change for their corporate event to be held outdoors. Nature inspired events let the guests get some welcome time in the fresh air and can also have a positive impact on the environment. It could be a gardening project with the focus on team building, or just a fun day out to raise team morale, like taking to the water on a boat cruise. Companies have organized guided walks around interesting areas, as well as full-on orienteering expeditions. Having your guests build relationships with one another will allow for great team camaraderie!
If your company is all about sport, then it’s a safe bet that team members will enjoy a straightforward sporting event. As we all know, sports are the best way to build team bonding! But sports aren’t just sports anymore- yes, there are still soccer and flag football games that your guests will enjoy- however, sports cover a broad range of activities that can be a great deal of fun for your guests! Table tennis, trampolining, zorb balls and even belly dancing are out of the box ways to get your guests up and moving! Out of the box sports are a fun way to relax and have your guests step out of their comfort zone.
Events based around activities that kids typically enjoy will evoke happy childhood memories in the team members taking part. These kinds of events can also aid creativity and problem-solving skills when they involve classic activities such as scavenger hunts and board game tournaments. High profile businesses have thrown events for their valued workers that have included all the fun of the fair, with rides, food stalls and games. Creating a theme around these activities allows your guests to express themselves and let their inner child out!
Volunteering is a real win-win option for a corporate event. The guests get to give back to the local community, the local community benefits from the volunteering and the profile of the company positively increases. These kinds of charitable or volunteering events raise the feel-good factor for everyone involved. Companies have held clean-up events, helped out at nursing homes and helped out at a food bank. Not only will giving back to the community do well for the residents and businesses in that community, your guests will also feel good about themselves and what they have done as a team!
It’s often the case that companies are open to the idea of throwing a party for their staff, so that’s always a great fall-back position. This option is particularly useful around the holidays, as annual celebrations often lend themselves to themed parties quite easily. Costume parties with a fancy dress area, funny props and a photo booth are ideal for events where the objective is to de-stress and unwind. A masquerade ball or music concert is also always well received. If your client is holding a conference and wants to add an interesting introductory event or grand finale, then this party-style theme can work really well.
All business sectors require creativity, in all of its guises. So even if your client isn’t obviously in the creative sector, their corporate event could still benefit from a creative theme. Sometimes all you need is an interactive board and the imaginations of the attendees. A company hosted a corporate event that incorporated an interactive art installation, which turned the tweets of the guests detailing their dreams into artworks. Another business turned stories submitted by its employees into a poem and got an urban poet to craft a narrative from it and perform it live at the event.
Hosting a roast is a lighthearted way to roast your CEO or boss! A roast can be held as a dinner, with guest speakers taking turns going to the podium to roast the guest of honor. Be sure that everyone involved is on board with doing a roast, and ensure that everyone is understanding of some of the jokes that may be said.
Photo booths are a wonderful way to capture the memories of your event! Photo booths have come a long way from the traditional camera with a backdrop; classic photo booths, slo-mo photo booths and even a 3D printer photo booth are able to be rented for your event. If you want to keep it traditional, the use of silly props and hats will allow your guests to express themselves and will be a great memento for your guests. If you want to keep the photo booth professional, there are photo booths you can rent that will take headshots for your guests. Your guests can come, take their professional headshot, and can update their headshots on their LinkedIn, social media, etc.
Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt? A photo scavenger hunt can be done either individually or as teams, and they can either explore the city where the event is held or at the event venue! The lists can be emailed directly to your guests, and they can take photo evidence of every item they find. Prizes can be awarded for whoever finds the most items, making it a friendly competition between your guests. If you choose to have the scavenger hunt around the city, providing maps for your guests who may be attending from out of state will help them navigate this new city. Plus, the photos will be a reminder of the fun times your guests had at the event!
Make your corporate event memorable with visual arts entertainment! Based on the kind of corporate event you wish to host, you could hire artists such as painters, caricature artists, or silhouette artists. While doing your research on the artists you would like to hire for the event, keep your budget in mind, as it can quickly become expensive.
Bring the party to your corporate event by bringing a live band! Everybody loves music, so you can be certain not to go wrong with this idea. You can set your company apart from others and create the buzz by hiring a well-known singer, like the company Plexus did when they asked Kelly Clarkson to perform at their BELIEVE Convention in 2017. If you don’t have the budget for that, consider hiring a local band, or even better: if someone in your attendees has their own band, give them the opportunity to perform at the event!
Impersonators are such a unique and fun way to spice up any type of corporate event! Your team might have a celebrity that they all love in common, so you can leave your attendees speechless by bringing its impersonator. If you like the idea but are not sure which celebrity impersonators to hire, base your decision on the demographics of your guests. You don’t want to bring in someone that nobody would have never heard of!
Give the opportunity to attendees to show their competitive spirit by organizing contests at your next corporate event. Friendly competition can be a fun way to strengthen relationships within your team and to engage creativity. Some fun contests ideas such as a costume competition, escape room, board games tournament, are a great way to stimulate your workforce. Boost attendees participation and engagement by rewarding them with prizes at the end of the contest.
Hologram technology can be costly and therefore isn’t within every corporation’s reach, but if it is something that you can pull off, your corporate event will definitely be something that the attendees will be sure to remember. Holograms are also a great way to keep your audience engaged and entertained during the event!
When planning your event, you may not know where to start. These 4 tips will help guide you through the planning process and build an event your guests will remember and will want to return to every year!
As every event planner knows, obtaining entertainment for your event can become costly. By creating an event budget and sticking to it, your team will be able to see what funds are going where. Some entertainment for corporate events may be less expensive than others, so keep that in mind. When hiring entertainers, think about the event budget as a whole, to avoid any surprises!
When planning your event, it may be easy to get carried away with the entertainment. By thinking of your event goals and keeping them in mind, you can be sure that your planning will align with your goals. Everything you plan, from food to entertainment to even your venue should support the event goals.
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Keeping your audience in mind when planning your corporate event will give you an insight into what your audience wants to see! By asking their opinion, you can be sure that your event will support the needs and wants of your audience. Pre-event surveys will determine demographics, attendee schedules and analytics from previous events.
Guests want to feel like they are actively participating in your event. Not only will they have fun at your event, they will feel like they had a true hand in the planning process for your event. As mentioned above, sending out pre-event surveys will ensure your event can have elements that your guests will interact with!
Corporate event entertainment can be done in a variety of ways, all depending on what your guests want. By sending out pre-event surveys, you can get an accurate picture on what your guests want to see from your events. By using the majority of your guest’s answers, you will have a high number of guests wanting to attend your event. Some guests may want your event to be food focused, while others may want to have a day full of sports. If this is the case, try and work with the budget to be able to achieve both- your guests deserve to have fun at your events, and allowing them to choose the fun they want to have will make for a memorable and successful event all around!
Eleanor is a freelance writer. She likes to write about everything from creative writing to wellness and loves discovering new things. She draws inspiration from her surroundings and spends her free time reading everything that comes into her hands. Eleanor works mainly with digital agencies to create amazing content.
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