Corporate event surprises

It’s my birthday, and while I am eagerly looking forward to all that today has in store, my mind is still on what happened yesterday. You see, I was scheduled to have a lunchtime meeting with my trivia event collaborator Pat Kiernan, and was feeling stressed out because I was caught in traffic, and running late. By the time I arrived to our designated meeting spot, I was further distraught to discover the restaurant was closed! However, when I notified Pat he told me that he’d be there in a minute – only a minute later it wasn’t Pat who showed up, but a dear friend of mine – who lives in New Jersey!

As it happens, I’d never really had a lunch meeting set up– my wife had sneakily gone behind my back, and colluded with Pat to make me think he and I were meeting, when in fact I was having a surprise “guy’s lunch” with a group of friends. Surprise!

Surprise TrivWorks team lunch at Peter Luger for David’s birthday – well played, @patkiernan & office manager Sarah pic.twitter.com/cJI3Qcpa7a

— TrivWorks (@TrivWorks) March 23, 2014

While not everyone enjoys surprises like I do, for a variety of reasons surprises are an excellent way to enhance events of all kinds, be it employee team building activity, corporate entertainment event, client reward or birthday lunch. Here are my five favorite reasons why surprises enhance events:

1.         They are more memorable – The key to any successful team event is a shared positive experience, and element of surprise in and of itself is highly memorable – especially if it’s something fun, entertaining and makes everybody feel good.

2.         They are talked about – Your group will talk fondly about the surprise and the event as a whole afterwards, much more than if there hadn’t been a surprise at all.

3.         They are boredom killers – Few people enjoy sitting through long meetings, and even fewer get excited over the prospect of a “team building event.” A solid surprise will jolt the group to life, and get them excited and engaged.

4.         They demonstrate thought & effort – People want to know you value and respect their time. If they are attending your event instead of working or spending time with their families, they will appreciate the time and effort that a your well-planned surprise conveys.

5.         They have lasting impact – Whatever message you are trying to communicate to your group, be it a teamwork skill, workflow process, new product or simply to show you value their loyalty, a cleverly-executed surprise will go a long way towards making sure that message has a lasting impact.

Surprises are a great way to ensure that events are successful, and should be appropriately employed whenever possible. Try it – you’ll see!