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Event Planning

The Ultimate Icebreakers to Warm Up Your Next Event

A2Z Team April 11, 2018
Table of Contents
3 min read

There’s nothing worse than an awkward start to a long event, especially when it comes to group networking games. To help alleviate some of the stress, we’ve searched high and low to curate a list of the best icebreaker games for your next event so you don’t have to. Take a look below!

Name Tag Switch

To begin this icebreaker, have each attendee write down their full name on a name tag when they walk into your session. Take this tag and hand them out randomly to all the attendees (group size depending). Tell your participants to find the other person with their actual name tag and have them ask three questions to get their name tag back. This interaction gives your attendees an easy approach to talk to others and helps them learn a little bit about each other without making it weird. Who knows – they may even want to continue the conversation later!

The Desert Island Question

One of our personal favorites, you start this icebreaker by having your attendees ask each other what three items they would bring with them to a desert island. You can make this more specific by telling them to limit it to something industry related or keep it silly to loosen the mood. Either way, this icebreaker will allow for your attendees to relax a little and hopefully foster some interesting conversation.

The Candy Color Game

This icebreaker begins by selecting a candy with a variety of colors (typically Skittles or M&Ms), placing them in a large bowl, and passing them around to your attendees. Ask each person to randomly pick three pieces of candy. Once everyone has selected, explain what each color stands for and have them break into small groups to discuss their answers. We’ve included some example questions below:

  • Yellow: What is your favorite vacation spot?
  • Green: What do you think everyone should do at least once in their life?
  • Red: What do you love about your company?
  • Orange: What skill would you like to master?
  • Purple: What’s your favorite way to start the day?
  • Blue: Who/What inspires you?

Let’s Take a Selfie

While this icebreaker isn’t a game, it’s a fun way for people to just go with the flow. Have each table come together (or grab the person next to you) and take a selfie and encourage them to post on social media with the conference hashtag. This will allow for your groups to connect on their professional social media (Linkedin, Instagram, etc) and promote your conference at the same time. Two birds, one stone!

Two Truths and a Lie

You didn’t think you’d make it through this list without this one, right? An oldie, but a goodie, this icebreaker starts with one attendee admitting two truths and one lie while having the rest of the group determine which is the lie. This icebreaker allows for people to be as personal as their comfort level permits, admittingly providing for some interesting backstory on what could seem like your average attendee.

As you can see, humor is typically one of the best ways to get everyone’s nervous jitters out of the way! Ultimately though, it will be up to you to best gauge what kind of icebreakers will best work for your event attendees.

Planning an event, especially a big one, can seem like a daunting task. There are a million things to do and, if you’re like most organizations, very few people to help. But don’t worry! We can help you with your own conference event app.