Picture this – you are hosting a social event/party with more than fifty people attending. You know everyone on the list – they are drawn from all sectors of your life. However, many of these people will know no one. Many of them are attending by themselves – and you being a master networker want to be one step ahead of the networking game. You know that you have done as much as you can to ensure the food, drink, entertainment, location are all first class. But how do you ensure that the experience for everyone is memorable, fun and enjoyable.
NAME TAGS – going one step further
In addition to the person’s name, why not put a tag line with a humourous and accurate note. e.g. John Smith – born in Tasmania. Mary James – mad Rugby fan. Dave Jones – loves the Swans. Bronwen Jamison – new to Sydney.
Obviously care must be taken with the tag lines – but what you are creating is an ice breaker. Something that will enable one stranger to talk to another stranger without feeling awkward.
PLAYING CARDS – finding a pair
Remember the Mission Impossible line – “Your task if you choose to complete it is to” find your other card half. If there are more than 100 people in attendance, then maybe it will be enough just to match your half king card with another half king. If there are less than 50 people, you will have to find the exact match – a half king of diamonds, finds another half king of diamonds. To incentivise the activity you may include some lucky door prizes for the first three couples who match their playing cards. Logistically if you give everyone a name tag and click the half playing card to the back of the name tag and have a couple of very clearly worded signs explaining what people have to do – you will certainly have people mingling and mixing quickly and enthusiastically.
CARD MATCH – matching heads and tails.
This system requires you to purchase some inexpensive packs of colourful christmas cards – the more designs the better. Step two is to cut the christmas cards in half horizontally, and shuffle the cards so that no two matching cards are together. Then as guests collect their name tags, give everyone half a christmas card. Again very clear signage explains how the cards are to be matched and examples of complete cards could be placed on the explanation board.
Why go to so much trouble? These three ideas will take time, effort and energy. However, your return on effort will be that your guests will have a fun time, they will have reasons to engage with total strangers without feeling awkward and there will be an instant buzz in the air.
Don’t be surprised when people leave the event, that they compliment you on the effort you went to and enthusiastically thank you for your invitation.
One thing I know for sure, whether your guests stay at your event for one, two, three hours or more, you can never give them that time back. They have given it to you. So the least you can do is everything in your control to make it a great event.
Enjoy 2013 and make the most of every networking opportunity that comes your way.
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