It is important to keep the energy and participation high during your event, while also ensuring that you are communicating consistently and effectively.
Rethinking your room layout
Seating arrangements can be mixed up
Seating arrangements such as round or poser tables, which encourage conversation and interaction, can help your attendees get to know each other.
Keeping sessions and content engaging
Manage presentations
Sessions need to be interactive and varied in style, length and content to keep attendees engaged.
Don’t let your speakers deal out ‘Death by PowerPoint’. Encourage audience participation, discussion, workshops, and ‘fireside chats.’
Gamify participation and networking
Add matchmaking and gamification to an event app in order to promote networking and engagement. Create competitions, leaderboards, and polls to encourage discussion.
Encourage attendees to attend sessions, to explore features, to chat with sponsors, and to engage with your content. You can ask your attendees trivia about the event or give them fascinating facts to use as an icebreaker. For Corporate Event Management, contact www.parallelblue.co.uk/corporate-event-management/
Wellness and food as engagement tools
Wellness opportunities
Exercise or yoga classes can be used to keep attendees active. You can also help reduce stress by setting up massage or meditation stations.
Consider a step challenge for the group if you are going virtual. By adding wellness options, you can increase the satisfaction of attendees and their overall engagement.
Change the way you prepare food
Ask chefs to demonstrate their culinary skills at stations where they can serve guests directly. You can serve food to encourage networking by opting for a butlered or reception service.
Of course, you can combine different styles of table service. Dessert stations are a great way to create a visual spectacle that will encourage guests to move from their seats, share their experience, and get up.
Summary
This article gives tips for boosting engagement at a corporate event. It suggests rearranging seating into round or poser tables to encourage conversation, varying presentation style to avoid death by PowerPoint, and gamifying networking through an event app with matchmaking, leaderboards and polls. It also recommends wellness options such as yoga or massage stations, and rethinking food service to get guests moving and mingling.
Questions this article raises
- How much does adding gamification features to an event app typically cost organisers?
- Which wellness options get the highest uptake at corporate events in practice?
- How do you measure whether these engagement tactics actually improved an event’s success?
