Choosing the right event entertainment can sound like a daunting task with so many possibilities. For example, you could offer your guests active entertainment they are involved in or provide a passive entertainment experience. In addition, these choices could depend on the type of event you are planning. In this blog, I will help you navigate your entertainment decision and provide you with insight from our 30 years of event planning experience. Lastly, I will discuss some tools and ideas from our experience in hosting successful virtual events that you can consider for your next event.
Active Entertainment
Often you can build your event around components of active entertainment where your guests participate, and you can expect them to respond to the different situations presented to them. Think of playing an instrument, a sport or a challenging video game; these activities remarkably stimulate your neurons and are perceived as challenging. They don’t let your guests sit and relax; this style of entertainment can push you to perform at your optimum instead and strive hard to get results. This type of entertainment instills a sense of satisfaction through your nerves and leaves you with a more confident self. Some of our favourite active entertianment ideas for your event include large lawn games, game shows and scavenger hunts.
Passive Entertainment
Passive entertainment can sometimes put your audience into autopilot to immerse them in the experience that your event is often trying to portray. The entertainment has the danger of being forgotten in the background as other event activities are ongoing around your guests. This type of entertainment can help networking events or other events where the entertainment is just the background. Some of our favourite passive entertainment ideas for your event include Cirque performances, acoustic musicians or DJ’s.
Three Event Entertainment Mistakes To Avoid
Keep these mistakes in mind when navigating your event entertainment choices. The top three event mistakes that people make when booking their event entertainment are the following:
- They don’t think of their event agenda.
- They don’t consider their audience.
- They pay too much for something that doesn’t fit their event.
Sharon’s Event Tip: When choosing your event entertainment be sure to take into consideration the purpose and goal of the event. If the entertainment does not serve a purpose to your event it may become over whelming to the guests.
Ideas for Virtual Event Entertainment
When hosting a virtual event or meeting it can be challenging to keep guests engaged and entertained because it is difficult to gauge their attentiveness from behind a computer screen. However, I have developed some strategies to make these events a success from our extensive experience of hosting successful virtual events during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The term gamification is used broadly to refer to interactive game components, trivia games, scavenger hunts, networking games, and quizzes, which leverage game mechanics to help us achieve event objectives. In addition, leaderboards can encourage participation and competition. These leaderboards can be arranged in a group or individual styles where guests can exchange points for on-site recognition or rewards.
Here are two examples of gamification for your next virtual event:
Augmented Reality Powered Scavenger Hunts: This term describes the use of Augmented Reality (AR) to create interactive game components. These can be used to enhance a variety of gamification components, such as trivia games, scavenger hunts, quizzes, and leaderboards.
Custom Games: This term describes an interactive game component such as trivia games, scavenger hunts, quizzes, etc., with customizable conditions. Games like these encourage specific behaviour and often include a leaderboard to promote participation and competition.
Moderator Tools For Virtual & Hybrid Events
When designing a virtual or hybrid event it is crucial to have a clear understanding of tools that can be used as the moderator to keep guest entertained and engaged. Here are some tools found in our toolbox to share with you to kick start your moderator experience so that you can keep guests engaged in the topics being discussed:
Up-Vote Questions: As questions come in from guests and appear in the Q&A tab, attendees can ‘vote’ for the ones they would like a speaker or presenter to prioritize.
Live feed for comments or questions: Live feeds (sometimes called live displays) provide the ability to link and show content on an on-site screen or a shared page within the app. This screen can display attendee contributions, such as questions or comments, in real-time.
Social media wall or stream: A social media wall or stream is a feed from social media, pulling data from one or more social networks using a hashtag, keywords, or account handle. The feed can be displayed on large screens or within the app. Comments and content posted from within the app’s private network may also be able to sync and feed into the stream.
Are you looking for some more guidance on booking the ideal entertainment for your event? I’d love to help you! Our team has booked thousands of event entertainment ideas over the years and would be happy to guide you through this process with our event consulting services. With our event consulting services, you can pick and choose from our a-la-carte menu where you need the most assistance for your event. Fill out a quote request form today to get started!
Follow along with this 10-part event consulting series below:
Event Consulting Series | How To Plan The Perfect Event Menu
Event Consulting Series | Designing a Corporate Event Décor Strategy
Event Consulting Series | Choosing Your Event Theme
Event Consulting Series | Selecting The Perfect Corporate Event Venue
Event Consulting Series | Event Consulting vs. Event Producing
