Virtual events have become an essential part of modern business and community engagement. With an increasing number of organisations hosting online events, standing out from the competition is more challenging than ever. According to a recent study, 35% of events in early 2024 were virtual, highlighting their growing prominence. As businesses and event planners look for fresh ways to engage their audience, innovative virtual event ideas are key to ensuring attendees remain engaged and entertained.
Whether you're planning a virtual conference, an online team-building activity, or a creative virtual networking session, we've compiled a list of 17 fun and unique virtual event activities to help make your next event a success.
Table of contents
Virtual events have transformed how businesses and communities connect, offering endless possibilities for interaction, collaboration, and entertainment. However, keeping attendees engaged requires thoughtful planning and creativity. Below, we explore some of the best virtual event activities to ensure your audience remains captivated throughout your online gathering.
Live scribing brings an artistic touch to your virtual event. A professional illustrator captures the key takeaways in real time, creating a visually engaging experience for attendees. This technique enhances the way information is processed, making it more digestible and increasing retention. Participants can refer back to the illustrated notes long after the event, reinforcing key messages.
Additionally, live scribing adds a layer of interactivity to your event. Attendees can suggest highlights to be captured in real-time, creating a more personalised and engaging experience. These illustrations also serve as excellent shareable content for social media, helping extend the reach of your virtual event and boosting engagement even after the session ends.
Engage your audience with an exciting digital scavenger hunt. Challenge attendees to find clues, solve riddles, or complete specific actions within your virtual event platform. This adds an interactive and gamified element, keeping energy levels high throughout the session.
To make the scavenger hunt even more engaging, consider adding different levels of difficulty or setting up team-based challenges. You can incorporate event-related trivia, hidden messages in presentations, or QR codes that unlock special rewards. Offering small incentives like discount codes, free resources, or digital badges can further motivate participants and encourage friendly competition.
Platforms like Kahoot and GooseChase make it easy to set up an interactive scavenger hunt, ensuring that attendees stay focused and entertained while exploring different aspects of your virtual event.
Break up long presentations by introducing a short live concert featuring an up-and-coming artist or a pre-selected playlist. A five to ten-minute live performance adds a refreshing touch, keeping your event memorable and engaging.
Consider partnering with local or emerging artists to provide an exclusive, intimate concert experience for your attendees. You can also allow participants to vote on their preferred music genre or song selection ahead of the event, making the session even more interactive. For a unique touch, host a themed musical break, such as a jazz interlude for corporate events or an energetic DJ set for a high-energy conference.
Additionally, offering a virtual meet-and-greet with the artist after the performance can enhance attendee engagement. Encouraging attendees to share their experiences on social media with event-specific hashtags can further increase visibility and create lasting memories from the event.
Online events can be tiring, which is why incorporating well-being activities is essential. Consider:
Guided meditation sessions – A short, guided mindfulness or meditation session helps attendees relax and reset their focus during long virtual conferences.
Chair yoga and stretching exercises – Encourage attendees to stretch and practice light yoga movements to prevent stiffness and improve circulation.
Short mindfulness breaks – A quick moment to step away from screens, breathe deeply, and reset can greatly improve engagement and focus.
Virtual wellness challenges – Set up daily movement or hydration goals and encourage participants to share their progress in chat rooms or social media channels.
Mental health talks and stress management workshops – Invite experts to discuss stress management techniques and work-life balance tips to support attendees' well-being.
These activities help reduce fatigue and enhance focus, keeping attendees fresh, engaged, and ready to participate in discussions and networking opportunities.
One of the best virtual conference ideas is to facilitate meaningful networking. Implement a speed networking session using breakout rooms, allowing participants to connect in short, structured meetings. Encourage attendees to exchange virtual business cards to maintain professional connections post-event.
To enhance engagement, consider providing conversation prompts or icebreaker questions to help attendees quickly establish rapport. You can also integrate a matchmaking algorithm that pairs participants based on shared interests, industry, or goals. A follow-up system, such as a digital connection board or post-event chat rooms, can keep the networking momentum going even after the event concludes.
Adding an expert speaker to your event lineup can greatly enhance its value. Engaging talks captivate audiences and spark discussions whether it's an industry leader, author, or motivational speaker. To further enrich the experience, consider a live Q&A session where attendees can ask direct questions, making the session interactive and insightful.
You can also incorporate polls and real-time engagement tools to encourage audience participation throughout the session. Inviting multiple guest speakers for panel discussions or fireside chats can provide diverse perspectives and keep the conversation dynamic. Additionally, offering exclusive downloadable content, such as speaker slides or key takeaways, ensures attendees retain valuable information long after the event.
An exhibition hall consists of a collection of speakers/booths/professionals from industries relevant to your event. A varied selection of exhibitors will create a stimulating and valuable attendee experience.
When hosting an exhibition hall, we recommend using a platform with a breakout room feature. Breakout rooms let you separate your audience into small groups. You could create a series of breakout rooms, one for each exhibitor.
Exhibition halls let participants choose who they interact with and when. An exciting range of exhibitors will stir up a buzz about your event.
This is a super unique way of keeping attendees engaged! We don't literally mean that you run through a whole P90X class with your audience. But you could designate five or ten minutes for a brief Tai Chi session or some gentle stretching.
Think about it. Events can be long, and people get agitated when they have to sit for long periods. We have all turned our cameras off at events to sneak a little break.
Guess what? The longer you make people sit, the more likely you lose their attention. Movement is a basic human function and incorporating it into your virtual events is fun.
Ever been to an in-person escape room? They are a lot of fun. You enter a themed room (Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, prison, etc) together and have to escape. Your team has to find a way to escape by looking for a series of clues.
Sites like Escape Live offer virtual escape rooms that are fun for the whole team. You could create a whole event around the escape room or use it as a team-building/icebreaker activity.
If you want to make things competitive, split your event attendees into smaller groups and have them try to be the fastest to escape.
You can be sure of this: everyone loves lunch. Why not have a whole event dedicated to lunch? This format is actually quite popular already. Lots of us will have experienced a "lunch and learn" style event.
There is an easy way of making an event better for your employees. Buy them lunch! If you need ways of driving attendance to an important event, giving participants a free lunch is a great way to do it.
Do your employees feel underappreciated? Maybe it’s time to show your appreciation by hosting a virtual award ceremony. You can even broaden the event by inviting suppliers, partners, clients, etc.
These are a great way of building team morale. Award ceremonies are also famous for being raucous events that people look forward to.
A bit of appreciation and humour can go a long way towards showing your employees what they mean to you.
Remember show and tell in school? Well, you can do the same thing virtually as an adult. This one might sound a little immature, but trust us, there are plenty of opportunities to get some good laughs and lift morale.
Naturally, this activity is better suited to less formal events. Expect to see some funny show-and-tell items while having a great time.
There are a few different personality tests you could use for this. The most famous are the red/blue/green/yellow test and the 16 personality-type quizzes.
You and your participants will have a great time learning about your personalities and comparing test results. It’s amazing to see how accurate these tests can be.
Many companies put a lot of stock into the results of these tests. They are regularly used in top recruitment processes.
Pretty much everyone likes coffee. Well, apart from you tea drinkers, don’t worry, you can still join these sessions! Why not schedule a virtual coffee break? Coffee has always been the perfect accompaniment to a stimulating discussion.
These work great as informal catchups and socialising sessions. Lots of teams host virtual coffee sessions once or twice a week to have a general catch-up. You could designate a virtual coffee session as your event’s networking time.
As mental health awareness filters into workplaces across the globe, mindfulness activities are becoming more common. There are many different mindfulness-boosting activities: meditation, breathing exercises, and even just taking a moment to be “present”.
If you want to include a mindfulness activity, we recommend using a tried and tested app or routine. There are plenty of mindfulness activities already available on the web.
Brainstorming has become a cliche term but it remains an incredibly powerful tool when used correctly. It doesn't take a mathematician to realise that 10 brains are better than 1 for problem-solving.
The key to an effective brainstorming session is to include everyone. A small portion of the group often dominates these sessions. As the group organiser, do your best to bring as many people into the discussions as possible.
You can take one fact for granted: virtual events are here to stay. New figures show that 74% of marketers see virtual events as key to their marketing strategy while in-person events trail at 63%.
Keeping your events fresh and engaging is going to be a barrier to success as the online event space becomes more competitive.
Using our ideas, your events will continue to be interesting and unique. Virtual meetings should be viewed as a battle for audience attention.
Get creative with your virtual events, and you will always be ahead of the competition.