Teambuilding

Attendees in the audience were not left out of the cooking challenge: They could also participate in a competition such as a doughnut-decorating battle.

Spirits brand Patrón has held dozens of interactive cocktail events around the country, including mojito and margarita making. “A lot of my events are not my own, so I have to come alive [as a sponsor] in someone else’s event. So how do I get people talking about my brand?” said Patrón planner Pam Dzierzanowski. She said these experiential programs are the answer: “I’ve done these all over the country for years. People will stand in line for 45 minutes—I’ve never seen anything like it."

At the long-term pop-up Samsung Studio L.A., hosts Bill and Giuliana Rancic partnered with Top Chef's Marcel Vigneron to lead guests through a cooking experience. The chef used Samsung appliances in the pop-up kitchen for the cooking demo, and attendees followed along using appliances at their own long tables arranged classroom-style.

Add a bit of Hollywood to a teambuilding event with TeamBonding's Make-A-Movie experience. The company’s facilitators begin the event with a short skit and then challenge each team of employees to make their own movie around a specific theme. TeamBonding provides digital video cameras and all editing services. The groups reconvene to screen each of the movies and vote on categories such as best actor and best director. The organizer also receives a DVD with all of the movies on it.

Smartphone cameras drive the fun in Corporate Games Team Building's Paparazzi game. Organizers divide participants into groups of about eight people each and give them a list of photographs and a bag of costumes and props. Teams then have a set amount of time to travel around a venue or within a designated part of the city, to capture as many of the photos as possible. Examples include a photo of team members posing as celebrities dining alfresco or a photo of team members hosting a cooking show. Organizers score the photos as they come in and put them into a slide show which can be viewed by everyone at the end of the event.

In the Spy Game, from the Go Game, participants work in teams to complete a series of activities and solve clues provided via smartphone, all based on the premise that someone from their company has been kidnapped and they need to solve the crime. Missions may include having to spell a word without writing, creating videos, and engaging with actors they may encounter throughout the designated course. Each game takes about two hours and combines some high-tech activities with more campy elements such as disguises and cracking codes.

Guests created greetings for active military members at a card-making station at a wonderland-theme holiday party, held at 26 Bridge in December 2014 and designed by New York-based event firm Rock Paper Scissors Events.