A cookie-decorating station turns adults into kids, says New York event designer David Stark. He recommends providing guests with blank ginger or sugar cookies in various shapes, along with a bar of edible decorating items.
Send guests home with an edible gift, like Harry & David’s Tower of Treats, $39.95, which is filled with Royal Riviera pears and a selection of mixed nuts, shortbread cookies, and citrus candies.
Guests will be more inclined to snap selfies if they feel they're looking their best—so events are coupling beauty treatments with other encouragement. At the Colgate Optic White beauty bar ahead of the Golden Globes in Los Angeles earlier this year, decals bearing the appropriate handles and hashtags decked mirrors near the beauty stations where guests were captive during hair and makeup services.
At the BMF Music Lounge during Coachella, sponsor Tide gave guests all the elements needed to take a selfie and easily share it. In a poolside suite at Palm Springs's Ingleside Inn, the brand decked out a mirror with floral appliques as well as the appropriate hashtag #TidePlus.
Event Farm and HyperVocal hosted the "2.0: The New Media Party" at the Carnegie Library last weekend during the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. At the event, the "Selfie Squad" sponsored by Microsoft facilitated quality selfies with guests, decor, the band, and other details of the party. The team then immediately posted the snaps to social sites using the hashtag #NewMediaParty.
During the holidays, fashion brand Ted Baker used the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe to encourage selfies that promoted the brand. At the Ted Baker Fifth Avenue store in New York, Kin Design created a 20- by 20-foot aluminum sculpture to serve as a modern twist on mistletoe, and guests shared kiss pics on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #KissTed. With the help of a specially designed app, photos then fed two 90-inch monitors inside the store’s front windows for passing shoppers to see. On Christmas Eve, the brand selected one participant to receive a free four-night stay for two at the St. Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
Online magazine xoJane hosted a party at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, this year that rewarded guests with fame at the event for snapping selfies. In an upstairs portion of the party space, guests were encouraged to take selfies with mirrors. The shots were then printed to add onto the "Shameless Selfie" wall and were projected in the event's main space, where MKG used neon masking tape and ultraviolet lighting for pops of bright color. The event promoted the pub's "Shameless Celebrity" list.
OtterBox gave out its new Symmetry Series phone case to guests at the Kari Feinstein Style Lounge at Coachella. But the free stuff came with a not-so-gentle reminder to help proliferate the brand’s message on social media: A dedicated mirrored “selfie station" allowed guests to share their snaps (with their phones clearly pictured, of course) using the appropriate hashtags.
Offering guests extra props or backdrops to inspire selfies can sometimes seal the deal. During a holiday event, the W Fort Lauderdale placed mirrors in nine spots throughout the property, each embedded in elf-theme vignettes. After snapping their festive shots, guests could then upload the images to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter using the hashtags #WFortLauderdale and #BringtheBright.
Not all selfies are spontaneous; offering a reward can incentivize guests to take and post them. The New York International Auto Show gave out free tickets to opening night to the first 100 people who posted a selfie with a show poster, found in New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
For a venue that will get the team moving, Urban Putt offers a winter-friendly indoor miniature golf course. The 14-hole course incorporates San Francisco landmarks—think a Transamerica Pyramid windmill—in a space that holds about 200 people. Still want to treat staffers to dinner and drinks? No problem. The venue also includes two private dining rooms, a restaurant, and a bar.
