Common Client Briefs – and the Event Formats We Recommend for Each

At The Big Smoke Events, we love creating bespoke team building events for every client. The bespoke nature of our events makes each one different from the next and we love personalising for your team and agenda. I have collated together a few briefs that may be similar to yours and what we would recommend to make your team event the best one yet!

Before we get into the details, we think it’s important to recognise what really helps to make a team event great whatever event that you choose.

1. Use office hours for your team event

This is one we always reiterate to clients. Having your event during company hours helps your team feel valued as you are not asking them to take up their own personal time for a work event. This will lead to better employee engagement and less dropouts on the day.

2. Plan an activity

We may sound bias but planning an team building activity not just ‘drinks after work’ is a more inclusive way of bringing your team together. Taking into consideration of people’s cultural and lifestyle choices, we’ve noticed a trend of people booking events that don’t revolve around consuming alcohol. (check out our CEO & Founder, Francesca Hubbard discussing this trend with The Guardian)

3. Give your team a choice on activity

If you’re umm’ing & arr’ing about what event would fit your team best, Send round a doodle poll or something similar to gain interest on what activity people would be interested in – allow your colleagues to make their own choice which makes them feel heard and will also help inform your decision – We’re also team event experts so if you want it to be a surprise, contact us and we can support you in choosing an event!

4. Supply refreshments

Whatever your budget, provide the team something to eat or drink is always a hit! This doesn’t have to break the bank, it could be ‘picky bits’ from a local supermarket, ordering pizzas (there are always deals going on!) or hosting your event at a venue with a buffet or even a sit down meal – recognise what time your event is (is it lunchtime?) and how long your team will be participating in the event. Don’t let your team go hungry or thirsty!

Now you’ve got a base idea of how to plan an event, here are some of our popular briefs and our event recommendations!

“We’re looking for something for our Summer Party”

Summer is one of our busiest periods with company summer parties popping up all over the place. With longer days and better weather, sunshine boosts the general mood and people want to be more social! We may be bias as it’s our base but London hits differently in the glorious sunshine! The better weather lends itself further to more outdoor events which is why our go-to recommendation for a summer party will always be our award-winning Scavenger Hunt.

Our Scavenger Hunt is as a standard a 3hr experience.

This includes;

• 30min briefing & Scavenger Hunt preparation
• 2hr Scavenger Hunt with 30 challenges to complete
• 30min highlight presentation and medals awarded to the winning team.

This event is completely bespoke and personalised to your company making this team event experience fun and relevant for each team allowing your teams expertise to shine through. Each route is bespoke and designed within the locations given to us (it doesn’t have to be in London!). This makes starting from your office and ending at your party venue so easy! All we need is an HDMI-compatible screen and sound system (and maybe a microphone if you have a particularly competitive team!) to share your highlights.

This is a truly fantastic way to get out the office, connect with your team and start your summer party off with a bang!

**Check out our video here to see how the Scavenger Hunt works

“Planning an interdepartmental conference – I’m looking for an icebreaker challenge”

The words ‘a little icebreaker’ send shivers through most of people’s spines. This is because teams have experienced the ‘give us a fun fact about yourself’ sprung upon them in front of 40 other people without preparation or ‘mind map the reasons you enjoy working for this company’ at a 9am start of a 3 days conference.

What these exercises lack is structure as you’re expecting everyone to feel confident to speak openly in a group of people that they may have only just met which can be an unreachable and uncomfortable task for many. This usually proceeds with each table having the same loud voice contributing to discussion which defies the point of icebreaker challenges.

 To navigate around the awkward ‘getting to know’ chat, we would recommend our Giant Jenga Challenge. Working in small teams, this 1hr event combines a simple, familiar game (Jenga but blown up so it’s BIG) with quick fire, personalised solo or team challenges. During the event, a live leaderboard is updated throughout keeping the competition fiery!

We reduce the thinking time to focus attentions on the tasks reducing the ‘awkward’ silences and with the help of our charismatic hosts and allow the friendly competition, cheering for your team and the ‘hands-on’ tasks allows conversation to flow more freely and trust to develop amongst the team. This team building event works so well as there is no hierarchy, no team captain, just purely everyone on the same level with the same goal – to win as many points as possible !

The worst thing that can happen in our Giant Jenga Challenge is the tower could fall but the team has the opportunity to build it back up in the allotted time. This means if an individual takes a risk and it doesn’t go according to plan, with the help of the team they can build the tower back up again stronger than it was before…and if that isn’t a great metaphor for the importance of teamwork, I don’t know what is!

“New Starters joining the Company”

Starting a new company can feel like quite a daunting thing – you know the company you are coming in to but you don’t know your team and they don’t know you. This is where our Personalised Trivia Quiz comes in! Every quiz is completely unique as it’s literally all about your company and team. We send through a short survey for participants to fill out which we use to design 5 rounds of general & company knowledge, childhood facts /secrets, dreams and aspirations making every quiz personal, relevant and fun!

This indoor event last 45 minutes but can be extended to 90 minutes with more rounds & additional team-based challenges. Let us know what your looking for and we will fit right into your agenda.

This event can be ran as a ‘technology free event’ meaning it can be ran almost anywhere! If you would prefer a more ‘pub-quiz’ style, check out our page here!

“We have a virtual global team and want to connect online”

Bringing together your global team might seem like an impossible task but we have a lot of experiences embracing different time zones, cultures and global teams. Ranging between 45 mins – 90 mins (the virtual event sweet spot!) we have an array of virtual teambuilding events that could work for this kind of event – our most popular is our Virtual Scavenger Hunt!

Hosted through Zoom, there is no set up from your side needed – all your team needs is their computer & internet connection. Our Virtual Scavenger Hunt splits the group into small teams and works similarly to our Scavenger Hunt. The teams have 1 hour to complete 21 personalised challenges from the comfort of their own homes/offices. This event utilises breakout room encouraging ‘face-to-face’ communication, forward planning & a whole lot of fun!

We always end the Virtual Scavenger Hunt with our favourite way by bringing everyone back together for the highlights presentation – this always creates a playful and hilarious wrap up to the event.

“Celebrating a Milestone Anniversary”

A milestone anniversary is a fantastic time to celebrate with your team. Investing in something special for your team is important because without them, this landmark occasion wouldn’t have happened!

For these extra-special events, we would recommend our Magic Bingo. Developed by The Big Smoke Team and professional magicians critically acclaimed, Tom Brace and Laurence Gibbons (half of the renowned magic double act, Kane & Abel), our Magic Bingo event is a truly unique event.

This 1hr event is an one-of-a-kind  team event combines live magic, comedy, interactive bingo and team challenges and is proven to bring teams together. We also create a personalised and interactive magic trick for every client. This event is a fantastic conversation starter that will leave your team guessing well beyond the event itself!

This is a truly special team event that is perfect for special occasions and company-wide celebrations.

Click here to see our Magic Bingo trailer to give you a bit of an idea of what to expect

Your team deserve only the best

Team building events aren’t ‘added extras’ or a ‘waste of budget’ – Investing in events for your company are strategic tools to support;

• Employee retention – if you invest in your team, they will invest back into the company – simply as that!
• Build trust and improve communication – team events help to break down barriers by giving them time to invest in getting to know each other without the pressure of it being work related improving communication. Improved communication helps to build and maintain trust amongst the team and ultimately, increase productivity. This is particularly important across larger companies who may only come together once a year
• Build company culture and boosting morale – investing time and resources (during work hours, we’ve already said that!) helps to build a company culture that doesn’t just revolve around work giving teams something to look forward to
• Reduce stress and burnout – giving your team to step away from their desks and workload is helpful as sometimes you just need space away from the work itself to be able to see the bigger picture.

Over at The Big Smoke Events, we are truly passionate about bringing high-quality, bespoke events to you and your team – we are 5* rated for a reason!

Contact us to discuss your next team event and we can advise on what event would fit you agenda best