Activity Team Building And Corporate Entertaining: The Planning Stages

By Author: Vikram Kumar
Total Articles: 9752
Comment this article

So you’ve decided, or been asked, to implement an activity team building or corporate entertaining event. For someone who has no experience in these fields, either task can seem really quite daunting. However, with a little planning, it doesn’t have to be. Below are some of the main areas you will want to consider before you start your research. Some of them may seem obvious, but it’s always worth having a checklist. You may, depending on your aims for the event, wish to add others but the items below should form the main body of your list.

Budget

If you’ve been given a fixed budget, this will be a no-brainer. However, if you have a flexible budget, you will want to work out exactly what you want to achieve from the event, whether or not you want to see a concrete profit element, and how you will measure this, or how much you can afford to allocate to costs and/or losses. Consider staff time away from their desks, and temporary cover you may need to allocate, and the actual costs of the event itself (see below).

Number of Delegates

The number of delegates you can afford to cater for may depend ...
... entirely on your budget, but make sure you don’t try to push the limits too far. An event that tries to include too many people for the activities and facilitators available will fail. Your staff will feel neglected or ignored, and will not get as much from the event as they hoped, and frustration or disappointment will ensue. Be sure to calculate catering and room space. Catering may well take place in a separate space, in which case you will need to factor in time for moving into and out of the relevant areas.

Venue Hire

This will depend to a great extent on your decisions on the above two items, and it may also affect them. You’ll need to work out how much you can afford either per person or per event, how many delegates you plan to have and how many facilitators you will need (these may include speakers, activity instructors, entertainers and catering staff, for example) before deciding on the size of the venue needed. Only then can you begin to research potential venues.

Type of event: Activity Team Building

Depending on the sort of team you are dealing with (and want to build!) you may choose more than one type of activity team building. Some popular ones are team games, such as paintball, initiative trials or exercises such as raft-building or simple social events. The latter is also suitable for corporate entertainment – in fact, all of the above may be an option, depending on the clients you wish to involve.

If the list above still sounds daunting, perhaps you should consider using a professional corporate entertaining organiser, such as Accolade. You may find that not only do they save you time, but also money, because they have a number of venues and personnel they use on a regular basis.

Author Bio

Whether you’re after Activity Team Building or Corporate Entertaining , Accolade can help advise and organise. See their website or give them a call for some great ideas and advice on a wide variety of events.