By John D’Adamo, VenuIQ US Head of Sales
In our Event Tech Live session “Keep on Pivoting,” I spoke with Oliver Rowe, Co-Founder of VenuIQ, and members of the chat, to discuss ways to create imaginative and outside of the box virtual events. While there’s no doubt that the virtual experience is going to be different from a face to face experience, instead of running away from that, we recommend leaning into it and creating unique opportunities for your virtual attendees. We went over seven different interactivity ideas to help bring your conference or event to the next level. Here they are:
1. Magic/Mind Reading: Perhaps for an opener to kick things off, consider a mentalist for your conference. Max Major, recently on America’s Got Talent, provides virtual event options, and hosts conferences and events. You could consider a vendor like Hoffman Entertainment. Called Distant Deceptions, the show can run from 5 minutes to an hour, providing great flexibility to the event organizer as they’re planning their run of the show.
2. Trivia: A fun idea for a breakout session could be virtual trivia. Interactive Entertainment Group offers this by providing a live host, and you can participate using your phone (up to 1,000 attendees). Even for as low as $10 you can purchase Jackbox Games on the App Store and immediately up the fun factor of your gathering with games like Quiplash where participants come up with unique free responses to prompts like “The worst name for a pinball machine.”
3. Mixology: One of our favorite ideas, especially for an evening reception if you’re attending virtually, is a mixology session. You can get ingredients either delivered or in-store and get the recipe and materials in advance so that for the session you’re ready to go. Cocktail Curations, Rach Green Cocktails, and Happy Hour Academy are just three of the vendors who offer this opportunity.
4. DJ Battles: For perhaps a Happy Hour session or teambuilding exercise, Quiet Events provides a unique DJ Battle interactivity option, where 3 DJs compete for your points and tips, and you can easily go between feeds. They offer playlists from the 80s, rap, today’s hits, disco, and many more.
5. Wellness: During conferences, when you’re in-between content sessions, consider 10-15 minute breakouts to get your body moving and we know cardio which studies show stimulates idea flow. Stacie Joy Yoga provides really cool interactive yoga sessions.
6. Real-time Illustrations: Why not, for a team-building session or a conference breakout, consider digital live scribing. Big Head Cartoons provides caricatures live during your event, which can be a fun activity that you can pair with a DJ or entertainment option.
7. Murder Mystery: Why not consider a murder mystery pre-party or after-party for your event. The Murder Mystery Co. provides this, and recently even TNT had a virtual murder mystery party for the season premiere of the Alienist where they mailed everyone detective kits and people teamed up to solve the crime.