There will be no kissing in the photocopier room this year, no embarrassing tales of one to many on the work night out. No, the Christmas party is going to be enjoyed live from your living room this year and many bosses are panicking as to how they can keep their colleagues entertained en-mass while they’re all staring at their computer screens.
Never fear though, technology can be your saviour and there are plenty of things you can enjoy over video calls as a company to keep everyone entertained.
Here are our top tips on how to save your virtual Christmas party this festive season…
Hire A Comic
Many companies will go to a comedy night or hire a comic to compere their Christmas parties, and there’s no reason that can’t happen virtually too.
Many comics have been doing stand-up online over the past seven months and there are plenty of ways to get colleagues involved, with interaction just as easy as being sat on the front row.
As well as this, you could also buy a ticket for all your colleagues to watch an online comedy night, with multiple acts taking part across the evening.
Bingo
Bingo is also a regular at Christmas parties, with great prizes on offer. 2020 has proven a big year for the game too, with more people than ever before playing online bingo, with the industry seeing a huge boom in revenue.
The more traditional forms are universally loved, with the likes of 90-ball bingo and 75-ball bingo easy to understand and plenty of fun to play along with.
Additionally, the likes of Bongos Bingo have been popular Christmas parties over the last few years, and while you may not be able to all head out to enjoy that, there’s no reason you can’t bring the bingo to your colleagues.
If you’ve never played bingo before, there’s many useful resources online which you can turn to such as these bingo FAQs. Regardless, it’s very simple to set up a virtual bingo game with you being able to email all your colleagues their bingo cards and then create some makeshift numbers and a bucket to draw from, just as you may do with a Grand National sweepstake.
Alternatively, there’s the option to also use a random number generator, which will choose numbers for you, and it’s simply up to you to read them out, bingo caller style of course!
Quiz
Quizzes are always a massive part of Christmas and the Zoom quiz has become synonymous with lockdown and keeping ourselves entertained during the pandemic.
You could either hire a professional quizmaster to join your video call, with plenty having started to specialise in it over the last few months, or you could create one yourself, whether it be themed around your colleagues and business or a simple general knowledge one.
Similar to bingo, prizes should be on offer for the winner, and if you have the power you could really set the stakes high and give colleagues the chance to win an extra day off!
With any quiz though it is important you do appeal to the consensus. Don’t make it overly difficult so people tune out and keep the questions generally relevant to the bulk of people’s interests. For example, in a workplace full of 20-somethings, it’s probably not a good idea to have a round based on 1970s TV or the orchestral works of Bach. They will not go down well.
Talent Show
If you want to make your virtual Christmas party as interactive and engaging as possible, then a virtual talent show may be the one for you, particularly if you have a fairly outgoing and confident workforce.
The way to do this would be to put the call out for anyone wishing to take part a few weeks before so they have time to prepare their act, and you have the time to collate the running order and intros, and then simply run it all through Zoom, with the rest of the call then voting on the winner either via email or in the chat boxes.
It’s relatively easy to create and is mightily enjoyable, potentially creating a Christmas party you really will never forget!
