It’s clear that one way or another, virtual events are here to stay. So, the question that hosts often ask is “How can we have an engaging virtual event?” and that’s where virtual events gamification comes in.
Gamifying your event isn’t a new concept. It’s all about adding game elements to encourage participation. It takes applying a traditional concept to the online events world to ensure that you keep your attendees engaged and excited. What does this mean? In the simplest terms – adding points and rewards to an activity.
We believe in getting (and keeping) your attendees’ attention. There’s no use in spending money on an event when people aren’t listening to what you or your presenters have to say.
And since we don’t do boring over here, we believe gamification should be a key part of any virtual event planning strategy. We’re talking point scoring, competition, prizes, the works!
Incorporating leaderboards in your virtual event means that the more attendees participate throughout the day, the higher their score gets. To build friendly competition, points can be awarded when they engage through commenting and asking questions.
You can even apply this concept to networking events. Here attendees will get more points the more people they network with and actions they take during those interactions.
In the end, the highest-scoring persons on the leaderboard can earn bragging rights or even prizes.
Leaderboards are a great option if your goal is to have the attendees as active and engaged as possible throughout the event.
Sponsored contests can take a variety of forms. One way to incorporate this into your virtual event is to test attendees’ knowledge of the host or sponsors. This may look like quizzes based on presentations or other information shared.
Another way to include sponsored contests is to play games where attendees can go head to head with each other. The first person to complete the task or the highest scorer wins a sponsored prize.
Either way, this is a great option to gamify your virtual event and encourage attendees to engage with the brands involved.
This might seem like an obvious one but bear with us. Adding multiplayer games means that the players must work together as a team to achieve a particular goal.
Maybe it’s solving a riddle or puzzle, collaborating on a presentation or idea, or coming up with a catchy song. Whatever you decide as the game, the attendees must come together (virtually, not physically) to achieve the end result.
By including multiplayer games in your virtual event, it will encourage bonding and relationship-building among the players. These will be great for breakout sessions.
Remember treasure hunts back when you were a child? The more you moved around, the better your chances of finding more “treasure” were. Well, it’s the same concept here.
The more attendees make use of the virtual event space, the more “treasure” they collect. This means that the more virtual booths they visit, networking rooms they enter, presentations they are a part of, the more likely they are to win. T
Using this gamification option helps maximize attendee use of the virtual space and all it has to offer.
Last but not least, you can incorporate challenges and activities during presentations and live sessions as a gamification option in your virtual event.
These can be activities that are tied back to the content of the presentation such as live polls to get a pulse on something that was said, a quiz competition based on a presentation or, a live response to a question via chat.
By using this option to gamify your virtual event, there’s a much higher chance of participants paying attention and retaining the information shared.
Incorporating challenges and activities is great if your goal is to measure their attention to what’s going on in the event.
Last thoughts on virtual events gamification
In our experience, clients who have offered prizes and giveaways (sponsored or not) as they gamify their virtual event, have seen greater success with attendee engagement.
And while gamifying your virtual event for more engagement is a good idea, please remember that this should be part of a wider strategy. The extent to which this is done successfully is also largely dependent on the platform you use for your event. Many event platforms have gamification features built-in to make this easier to execute. If you need a few options for platforms, you can check out our blog here.
TCJ Events can help you gamify your next virtual event for more engagement. We create a comprehensive virtual event strategy based on your goals and support you from planning to post-event. Interested in chatting with us? Book a call below.
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