Why would a team building company talk about trade show games?  Because we create all sorts of interactive experiences!  Our Manager of Making It Happen, McKenzie, recently attended Elevate by BizBash in Washington, DC – a one-day workshop, conference and trade show.  She had a fabulous time!  But, while she was there, the topic of how you make an event like this more interactive came up.

So, we thought it was apropos to share some of the ways you can include conference and trade show games to enhance your event in today’s blog.

First and foremost, every trade show manager’s goal is to get attendees to visit exhibitors’ booths. Lots of traffic means happy exhibitors who will come back to the next show. One of the more popular trade show games is to give attendees a passport that they must get stamped in all or some trade show booths in order to enter a prize drawing. The up side is that this increases traffic to the exhibitors’ booths. But, the down side of this is the possibility that exhibitors may have to deal with people who just want a stamp on their passport interrupting them during important conversations with potential clients.

The solution? Host non-intrusive trade show games!

For instance, we’ve created many Trade Show Treasure Hunts for our clients. Attendees access information about how to play and clues via registration materials, or by visiting a hunt website with their own smart device. Half of the information attendees need to solve the treasure hunt clues along with what booth they should visit to get the other half is highlighted in materials or on the website. When attendees arrive at the booths, the information they need to solve the clue is on display.  This could be a sign, a prop or even information that’s integrated into the exhibitors’ displays. There’s no need to interrupt the exhibitor to get what they need. The value for the exhibitor, in addition to not being constantly interrupted, is that the clue itself is designed to highlight their brand or product. Because of this, exhibitors can choose to interact with attendees as they’re standing at the booth trying to solve the clue.  Or, they can go about their business if they’re otherwise engaged!

 

And, then there’s networking…

 

Secondly, every attendee’s goal, in addition to education, is to network with others. Walking up to strangers can be intimidating. Mom’s admonitions of “don’t talk to strangers” ringing in our heads perhaps? So, put people (and Mom) at ease by giving them a reason to talk to one another by hosting conference and trade show games that turn strangers into collaborators! As an example, we have a business card networking game that gets everyone interacting. Attendees get a business card holder.  In each slot is a description of the type of card that must go there, such as “a business card that has dots in between phone number digits instead of dashes.” Attendees must collect a card from a different person for each description. If they fill all of the slots with the business cards indicated by a set time, they’re entered into a prize drawing. Best of all, they get to keep the business card holder and all of the cards they collected!

Speaking of “Did you know?” we discovered, when we went to give blood at a partner’s blood drive, that 3 out of the 6 of us are not able to give blood.  That’s because of where we’ve traveled/lived in the past (England, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua). Who knew? We wished we had before finding out after an hour of waiting. But, it was worth it and we were very proud of Gaby for being brave and donating blood for the first time ever!

Oh – and the answer to the New York City question above (if you were wondering)? It’s 38!