Picture a scenario where strategic games and friendly competition enable active participation and drive key concepts, making your corporate event impactful and memorable. This is the power of gamification. In today’s fast-paced environment, traditional presentations often struggle to capture and maintain guests’ attention. Enter gamification – an approach that infuses events with interactive elements and game-like experiences. By leveraging components such as points, leaderboards, and challenges, gamification turns standard sessions into dynamic and engaging experiences.
Gamification can transform events from routine to remarkable, driving better engagement, boosting morale, and fostering a stronger sense of community among employees. This simple addition to your presentations can make your next program not just a meeting but an unforgettable experience.
Quick Links
- What Is Event Gamification?
- The Benefits of Event Gamification
- Tips for Memorable Experiences with Event Gamification
- How to Include Event Gamification When Planning Corporate Events
What Is Event Gamification?
By incorporating games into events, planners help attendees tap into their competitive side to experience events in a way that’s not only engaging but also entertaining. Event gamification uses game-design elements and principles in the context of meetings to do just that.
By introducing gaming components, event planners can transform a standard corporate session into an interactive and immersive experience. Gamification taps into the human desire for competition, achievement, and recognition, making it a powerful tool to enhance attendee engagement, especially as recent data shows 64% of attendees report immersive experiences as an important element when it comes to their experiences.
The Benefits of Event Gamification for Corporate Events
Having fun isn’t the only upside to event gamification; it also offers several significant benefits for corporate events. Here are some key advantages.
Enhanced Engagement and Participation
Gamification introduces interactive elements like challenges, quizzes, and rewards that actively involve participants. Rather than passively attending sessions or activities where they simply sit and listen, attendees are encouraged to engage with the content, interact with speakers, and connect with one another.
Game mechanics (such as points, badges, and leaderboards) also mean attendees are incentivized to participate more fully in the event. Whether points are awarded for attending sessions, networking with peers, or exploring exhibitor booths, gamification encourages participants to take part in a broader range of activities. Plus, this heightened engagement leads to a more dynamic and lively atmosphere, in which participants are more likely to contribute and interact.
Increased Motivation
While intrinsic motivators are powerful, extrinsic rewards – such as prizes, exclusive access, or recognition – also play a significant role in boosting motivation. The prospect of earning valuable rewards encourages attendees to participate more fully in event activities.
Plus, gamification often provides immediate rewards for participation, such as instant points for completing a quiz or unlocking a badge for attending a session. This instant gratification serves as positive reinforcement, encouraging attendees to continue participating in activities. The immediate feedback loop creates a sense of excitement and anticipation, motivating attendees to engage more to earn additional rewards or strive for continued recognition once the event is completed.
Improved Learning
Everyone learns differently, and that’s why it’s important to incorporate multiple forms of learning. Some people might prefer to gain new insights by reading or listening to a presentation. Gamification, however, adds another dimension of educational fun during events.
Incorporating gamification into training sessions or educational components of a corporate event can significantly enhance learning outcomes. Games and quizzes make the learning process more enjoyable while instant feedback and rewards help reinforce key concepts. This interactive approach makes it easier for attendees to retain information and apply what they’ve learned when returning to the workplace.
Strengthened Networking Opportunities
Gamification can include team-based activities or collaborative challenges, which can break the ice and encourage networking among participants. By working together toward a common goal or competing in a friendly manner, attendees can build stronger connections with colleagues, clients, or industry peers.
Another way gamification may facilitate networking is by allowing attendees to earn points or rewards based on the number of connections they make via the event app. This encourages connections to be made before the event starts by allowing attendees to bond while also earning points. These enhanced networking opportunities can lead to valuable professional relationships and business opportunities long after the event ends.
Real-Time Feedback and Insights
When it comes to successful corporate programs, the data gathered can be impactful on the current event but also on future events. Gamified elements like polls, surveys, and live leaderboards provide organizers with real-time data on participant behavior and preferences.
This data can be used to adjust on the fly, ensuring the most popular or effective activities are emphasized. Post-event, the data collected can offer valuable insights into what worked well and where improvements can be made, helping to optimize future events.
Boosted Brand Image
A well-executed gamification strategy makes a corporate event more impactful, leaving a lasting impression on attendees. When participants enjoy the event and feel that it offers value, they are more likely to associate those positive feelings with the host company or brand.
Tips for Memorable Experiences with Event Gamification
Before you hit the ground running with gamification ideas, there are a few important components to keep in mind to ensure your gamification efforts are successful.
Set Goals
What are you looking to accomplish through gamification? Understanding your goals can help you better implement gaming elements. For instance, if you want to promote event awareness, games that include social media will encourage attendees to spread the word about your brand across their channels.
Or if you have a goal to increase participation rates, games are an excellent option to help you do so. Through gamification, you incentivize the experience for attendees by allowing them to earn rewards. This simple tactic is a great way to encourage attendees to engage with content and explore everything the event has to offer.
Not all goals have to be focused on metrics though. You might just want to find new ways to ensure your attendees are having fun. Whether that’s through creative activities, team challenges, or trivia battles, gamification is sure to encourage excitement throughout the event.
Understand Your Audience
Not every game is going to be a hit for all attendees. Because of this, it’s important to have an understanding of what goes over well and what features should be avoided when planning. For instance, games that are interactive, include competitive elements, promote social interaction or networking, or provide immediate rewards are often fan favorites.
On the other hand, overcomplications of games can deter attendees from participating, as can technical difficulties or frequent malfunctions. Additionally, games that don’t provide value or are simply not of interest to attendees might not resonate well.
To cater to attendee preferences, games should be relevant to your specific audience and event, including the overarching event theme and branding, and they should be straightforward. Simple games encourage everyone to participate, and when the tech works well, attendees won’t feel inconvenienced or frustrated.
Incorporate Event Tech
On the note of technology, there are likely some elements you’re already familiar with that could enhance event gamification. For instance, event apps on mobile devices manage leaderboards and send push notifications to attendees. Plus, event apps are a great place to store game rules and track progress, so attendees can easily find the information they need.
In addition to mobile event apps, smart event badges assist with participation tracking for games. For example, attendees might receive points for the number of sessions they attend, and that attendance is tracked by scanning their smart badge. This is not only an easy way for attendees to engage in event gamification, but the data gathered also provides valuable insights regarding attendee preferences and behaviors.
How to Include Event Gamification When Planning Corporate Events
No matter how you choose to incorporate gamification elements, the overarching goals are ultimately the same: to engage attendees, enhance their experience, and ensure they’re enjoying themselves. Consider the following event gamification ideas for upcoming corporate events.
- Trivia: There are many Jeopardy! fans out there, and the Jeopardy! format is one way to include trivia during corporate events. With trivia games, the content can be easily customized to focus on industry knowledge, company history, or topics relevant to the event’s theme. By competing in trivia contests, attendees test their knowledge and learn new information in an entertaining format.
- Polls and Surveys: By incorporating live polls or surveys into sessions, event organizers can involve participants in decision-making processes, gauge opinions, or assess knowledge. For example, a speaker might ask the audience to vote on a topic to discuss next, or a company might seek input on product features. The instant feedback keeps attendees involved and gives them a voice in the event.
- Social Media Contests: As we’d mentioned previously, incorporating social media into your gamification can not only be fun for your guests, but it can also be beneficial for the company hosting the event. By encouraging participants to share their experiences, thoughts, and content on social platforms, you create buzz and amplify the event's impact. You could consider hashtag challenges, photo/video contests, or other types of content creation challenges to get people talking about your event to make the event even more memorable.
- Networking Games: Another topic we briefly touched on was gamifying networking. Networking games are an excellent way to break the ice and encourage attendees to connect meaningfully during an event. These activities transform traditional networking into a fun and engaging experience, helping participants build relationships, exchange ideas, and expand their professional circles. You could consider speed networking, Q&A-style networking, icebreaker bingo (Bishop-McCann actually utilized this technique at our own forum!), or simply enabling points for connections made via the event app.
- Scavenger Hunts or Bingo: Scavenger hunts are a dynamic way to encourage exploration and interaction at corporate events. Participants are given a list of tasks or items to find, which could include visiting specific booths or meeting certain people. Plus, this activity promotes networking, as attendees may need to collaborate or interact with others to complete their hunt. Additionally, event-themed bingo is an easy-to-implement gamification strategy. Bingo cards can include squares representing various activities, such as attending a session, meeting a new colleague, or participating in a discussion. As attendees complete these activities, they mark off squares on their bingo cards.
- Challenges: Challenges provide an opportunity to really get creative with event gamification elements. These activities can be individual or team-based and can range from simple tasks like visiting a certain number of booths to more complex challenges like creating a presentation or solving a problem. Participants are often motivated by the desire to win prizes, earn recognition, or achieve a sense of accomplishment, making challenges an effective way to drive participation.
Event planners are constantly looking for ways to make corporate events fun and exciting for attendees. Whether that’s swag bags with branded gifts, a celebrity keynote speaker, or a notable performer, something new and exciting keeps attendees engaged.
Ultimately, event gamification allows planners to create a more dynamic event. With so many gaming options to choose from, organizers can easily pick one that aligns with their event goals and content. If you’re seeking creative ways to ensure attendees are not only absorbing content but also actively participating, gamification might be the way to go. Better yet, the expert event planners at Bishop-McCann can help you craft creative experiences for attendees.
If you’re gearing up for an upcoming event, don’t hesitate to reach out to our event planners today!