5 Event Themes and Tips to Get the Most from your Delegates
There is no reason why conferences, away days and other professional events shouldn’t be fun. In fact, injecting a little excitement and humour can have positive results on your delegates’ productivity and motivation as well as mood.
One way to really get your delegates’ attention and help them break out of that workaday mind-set is to add a theme to your event.
Go big or go home! If you’re going down the theming route then chose a strong motif and really embrace it to ensure everyone is on board from the offset. Theme your entire event; from the save the date to the menus!
Here are some of our favourite event theme ideas and the best venues to host them.
Lego
A Lego theme is great for construction conferences, team building, and bringing new products to life. If a company is experiencing rapid growth or undergoing a re-organisation, a construction theme is a perfect fit! Lego kits on the delegates’ tables will be an instant hit with engineers and architects especially!
The Perfect Venues: One Birdcage Walk, Founders’ Hall and Haberdashers’ Hall are particularly good choices.
Law & Order
A court room theme gives you a chance to put delegates or the CEO and executive board on the stand for questioning and judgement! It may sound kooky but get into the spirit and it works brilliantly for companies who are re-branding, re-positioning, winning new business through client testimonials/questioning.
The Perfect Venue: There can only be one choice for this theme – The Law Society, of course!
Rubik’s Cube
Ideal for corporate events that involve teams, a Rubik’s cube theme is scalable and adds a splash of colour to any event. Create the theme with Rubik’s cubes on tables, coloured tablecloths and/or crockery, and even Rubik’s cube themed desserts. Ask guests to come wearing their assigned team colour!
The Perfect Venue: Square-shaped glasshouses are a great choice and we love East Wintergarden, Stationers’ Hall, Royal College of Art, Haberdashers’ Hall
007
When searching for new business opportunities or solutions to challenging business issues, getting in touch with their inner Bond will help your team think outside the box! James Bond themed events can have the best after parties too – use high end food and champagne (Bollinger of course) and offer Vesper cocktails on arrival.
The Perfect Venue: Any unique venue in London could work, Haberdashers’ Hall/Smithfield recently featured in Skyfall, and the In & Out is a great choice thanks to its members club vibe.
I’m a Delegate Get Me Outta Here!
This is an awesome theme for team building, gaining trust in new employees, company mergers, and building brand strategies, all in the middle of the “Australian Outback”!
Discover the treasure chest hidden in the grounds of ZSL London Zoo, but in order to do this, first you and your team must navigate around the zoo using the contents of your safari bag to hunt for clues, complete on the spot challenges and crack the safe code!
The Perfect Venue: ZSL London Zoo works perfectly.
Other quick tips to galvanise delegates:
- Graffiti badges on arrival – guests get involved from the start (especially good choice if the conference has a creative focus)
- Physical activity in breakout sessions. We love giant party games such as gigantic Jenga (great choice for a Lego theme!), sizeable snakes & ladders or super-sized Scalextric.
- Keynote speakers make big impact and can be incredibly inspiring (just make sure you do your research and choose well!)
- Meditation sessions – Steve Jobs credited his creativity to the powers of meditation, Google is known to send employees to meditation programmes and Facebook has a room dedicated to it in their headquarters. If it’s good enough for them then it’s good enough for your delegates!
Got any great tips of your own or favourite themes? Let us know on Twitter @ITAVenues
