Gamification Art: Level up Your Audience Engagement in Virtual Events

Last updated on April 5th, 2024 at 10:55 am

If you are finding it a challenge to fully engage with your audience online during an event you are putting on, there are a few ways in which a seasoned, modern London event agency can assist you. The last few years has seen a rapid shift towards virtual events within business, and in a post-covid world, there are now a greater number of fully online or virtual hybrid events that demand a different type of planning and execution than the traditional physical events of the past. One way to improve engagement and to get your point across in the most effective way is to look at gamification as a tool to impress.

The benefits of gamification for a virtual event

Virtual events can be challenging for the event organiser, especially if this is your first time hosting such an event. Even if your business has hosted physical events in the past, the world has changed significantly in the last few years, with many events permanently moving online and other choosing hybrid options which is a combination of physical attendees and an online audience alongside it. Instead of attendees just sitting in front of a screen or a speaker, you can gamify even the most mundane parts of an event, to get the juices flowing and to excite everyone in attendance.

The benefits of gamification for a virtual event include:

• Improves engagement with attendees
• Boost participation throughout the event
• Creates excitement for everyone involved
• Interactive challenges help to increase retention of knowledge
• Grows the potential networking opportunity through collaborative challenges
• Provides a memorable and immersive experience for attendees
• Motivates attendees to explore as much content as possible during the event
• Provides data for future analysis to help improve future events
• Personalise the experience for attendees and customise rewards
• Create a buzz for future events through positive word-of-mouth

Ideas for gamification at a virtual event

The art of gamification is a clever and creative one. You can combine various gamification ideas into your event, including tactics that you might recognise from physical events in the past. Here are just a few ideas:

Icebreaker

We are probably all familiar with the icebreaker, from job induction days, interviews, and the like. This is a great way to help those attending to come out of their shells a little and to spark conversations and get the atmosphere building before the main event. There are many different ways in which you can play the icebreaker game. This can include:

• An emoji introduction –  where attendees introduce themselves via emoji and the others try to decipher the messages
• Virtual bingo – a quick round of bingo where icebreaker questions are drawn instead of numbers
• Desert island discs – ask attendees to share the three songs they would take with them if stranded on a desert island
• Exchange fun facts – every person must share a unique and interesting fact about themselves, the funnier the better

The icebreaker game can take many forms, so these are just some simple ideas to get you started.

Virtual treasure hunt

The thrill of a scavenger hunt doesn’t diminish just because it is online. This event game is a fantastic way to encourage attendees to complete challenges to uncover clues, and hunt objects. This can be done alone or in small teams, promoting teamwork and increasing networking potential. The event organisers will supply a secure platform where clues can be scattered across the virtual event platform, with prizes for those who solve the puzzles.

Team quizzes

If you are looking for your attendees to get together and work well, to boost camaraderie, putting on team quizzes are a fantastic way to do so. Interactive quizzes can be added to individual seminars, conferences, and meetings, to help with the mental recollection of the topics just discussed. You can divide attendees into different teams, give them time to discuss everything, and then quiz away. Interactive elements to a virtual quiz make them fun, fast, and exciting, and you’ll find that your attendees are much more likely to understand what they have just seen and heard, if there is a competitive element and a quiz at the end of a session.

Virtual karaoke

This might not be something that you do at the beginning of an event, as everyone will probably still be a little stiff at this point. Once things have loosened up though, and people have started to mingle more and chat with other attendees, a virtual event can properly kick off with a little karaoke. Participants can belt out their favourite songs from the comfort of their own home, with the karaoke platform used to select songs, display lyrics and even allow for some rating for a competitive element.

Virtual casino night

Get on your black-tie and roll the virtual dice to experience all the thrill of Vegas in a virtual environment. This is a way of creating a lively atmosphere that is entirely interactive and provides gamification to another level within your virtual setting. You can create custom leader boards, offer bonuses and custom rewards. Participants can play all the classic casino games, like roulette, blackjack, and poker. Chat rooms linked to each table and game allows for a relaxed environment for attendees to chat with each other away from the main event rooms.

The gamification of virtual events is the present and future of effective engagement. There are many reasons why you might be looking to put on a virtual or hybrid event for your business, and you want to ensure that you not only invite the right type of attendee to match the targets for the event, but that you have everything in place to ensure that they are engaged the entire time. A professional London event agency with the experience of assisting companies in myriad industries and sectors, can help you to engage with your audience in the most interesting ways, utilising gamification art and techniques that gets your attendees talking and making it the most interesting of events.