Event Planning – What’s Missing…

Photo courtesy of ryanrocketship on flickr

Every planner wants to do that extra special something to ensure their event stands out. Amazing speaker…check! Tasty food and beverages…check! But what you’re missing is a fun event, a really fun event that’s memorable and provides lots of laughs. What to do, what to do? Then it hits you like a ton of bricks, a Scavenger Hunt. The perfect addition to your event!

A scavenger hunt is a combo of team-building, information sharing and serious fun. A scavenger hunt is a fantastic way to get your guests, attendees and staff to get to know each other better, work together in a cohesive way and actually have some fun. And at the same time sneaking in common-sense thinking, problem solving and communication. It is a win-win situation across the board.

Event Planning – Scavenger Hunt

The basic definition of a scavenger hunt is; searching for and finding particular items from a list provided by the organizer. Scavenger hunts are really cool and fun and can be organized anywhere. In the hotel, venue or, if you want to go really go big, utilize the city you are in. They can be planned using cars or by foot and with or without public transportation.

Event Planning – Let the Fun Begin!

There are a couple of ways to go when planning a scavenger hunt.

You can easily hire a professional company to provide all the scavenger hunt services required for your guests. Scavenger hunts can be created for any specific group and location. All the scavenger hunt companies I’ve dealt with will take the info provided by the client and tailor the entire program to each group’s particular needs and wants. The supplier will then come on site and oversee the entire thing, including the awards ceremony.

Another option (time permitting) is to use your own creativity and design the scavenger hunt you imagine. As part of a team organizing a conference in San Francisco for just under five thousand attendees one of my responsibilities was to plan and coordinate an off- site dinner for 100 guests. We planned a fun scavenger hunt prior to dinner ending at the restaurant…just in time to eat! I wanted to design and set up the scavenger hunt from scratch and put the whole thing together including the list of questions, various routes, a time-line and the awards ceremony. The scavenger hunt was definitely a hit with the guests. They all arrived at the restaurant amused, smiling, giggling and sure that their team had won.

To this day, I don’t know who had more fun, the participants or me! Putting the scavenger hunt together was a hoot and I learned a lot. I truly believe that if I learn something from an experience it is worthwhile. And I’m happy to say that I most certainly did!!