’Tis Already the Season

T-Day hasn’t even hit, and yet for event planners, the holidays are already upon us.

Ah, the holidays. A time of tradition — eggnog, muhindi, dreidels, tinsel, Santa.

Would that it were the same for event planners.

But no, it falls to the planner to continually reinvent tradition, so that it is familiar and yet new, ageless yet contemporary. And by the way, there are probably a few internal marketing, employee morale and corporate branding messages you’ll want to hit along the way.

Fortunately, if this year’s top three trends in interactive holiday activities are any indication, you’ve got plans to do just that.

1. Community-Driven

Community service as team building, a growing trend, will be no stranger to successful holiday events this year.

“We are beginning to propose events with more of a community focus,” says Beth Bilger, director of corporate meeting and event services for Wachovia Corp. “Instead of a standard holiday cocktail party, we are encouraging our employees to give back to the community by volunteering as a group at a shelter or participating in a toy or food drive.”

One such program that has taken off like wildfire is bike building, according to Kelley Howard, an account executive with the Palm Springs-area location of The Meeting Manager.

In Build-a-Bike, attendees work in groups to create bikes out of a box of parts. Other possible activities include quizzes about bike parts or company history, or inventing and performing a team cheer. The Meeting Manager can also arrange to bring in a local Boys & Girls Club, Toys for Tots or other group to accept the assembled bikes.

“People just love it, especially when they get to see the kids there,” she says. “I think that in the spirit of the season it would be such a great component to a holiday party.”

Amanda Griggs and Jim Brychell of PRA Destination Management Los Angeles report great success with a similar program, Build-a-Bear. At one event, guests designed teddy bears and donated the finished products to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

But building community doesn’t necessarily have to involve community service. Francine McKanna, president of PRA’s Las Vegas location, has organized “nester parties” in which each person gets a set of holiday-themed nesting dolls all of the same size and the goal is to trade them for a complete set.

“This gives guests the opportunity to interact, mingle and trade — and take home a holiday gift,” says McKanna.

With the infinite variety of nesting dolls on the market these days and even the ability to make custom dolls, one can only imagine the possibilities.

Sometimes fostering a sense of community takes a little competition, says Laurie Sharp, a certified meeting professional and president of Sharp Events LLC in San Francisco. She has used karaoke contests to do just that, bringing in a live band that can double as entertainment after the contest.

Another idea that works particularly well for companies with regional sales teams, she says, is staging an “America’s Got Talent”-style event in which the regions have to work together to suss out hidden talents within their group and compete against the others.

Jon Wollenhaupt, vice president of San Francisco-based Excel Meetings and Events, says gearing the event toward all attendees is a priority.

“An interactive element of a holiday party that is obvious but often overlooked is the engagement of upper management,” he explains. “Management that mixes and mingles and has a good time meeting guests and spouses at a holiday party creates a shared experience and reflects a corporate culture that appreciates its employees and their contributions. It creates good will that lives far longer than just the holiday season.”

2. Armchair-Interactive

Interactivity of some kind is de rigueur for holiday events this season — but just how interactive? Not everyone wants to stand in front of their peers and belt out “My Heart Will Go On,” so trend number two this year is armchair interactivity — entertainment that incorporates attendees but doesn’t demand strenuous participation.

Jennifer Smith, director of meetings for Mt. Pleasant, S.C.-based Planning the Globe, brought in an interactive presentation for one corporate client that had attendees learning about each other while learning about different holiday traditions.

The session had actors, backed up by singers, speaking about Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza in a humorous fashion (think Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song”) and interacting with the audience, asking questions such as “What’s your most embarrassing holiday story?” or “What’s the funniest thing somebody asked you when you were taking the day off for Hanukkah?”

“It was really a kind of a conversational talk — ‘It’s great that we can all work together and enjoy these holidays and respect each other and live in harmony.’” says Smith. “The company was able to say they had a diversity event, but it was humorous and fun and holiday-related.”

Smith helped keep the program within budget by sourcing the actors through a local non-profit creative arts school, Creative Spark.

One new rental item is amenable to interactivity of varying degrees — an ice skating rink. Made of synthetic plastic, it’s ice-like enough for people to do anything you can do on real ice.

Of course cavorting about on the ice isn’t exactly something you can do from an armchair, but the rink is more often used to stage unique performances, as many clients are concerned about liability issues. Event producer Shane Ruff, of Boston-based Party By Design, has used professional skaters and circ performers.

The rink is available nationwide from Perfect Parties USA, costing between $3,000 and $5,000, depending on size. The company also rents skates.

Dueling pianos did the trick for Angela Hofford when she worked as a national sales manager with PRA’s Arizona location. She located two pianos and pianists on a stage behind curtains so as not to give the entertainment away too soon.

Dueling pianos “gives everybody a chance to get up and sing along and clap along, without being in that nightclub environment,” she says.

Hofford was right on the mark, as the most important implication of armchair interactivity is the recognition that attendees need options.

“What most of the clients do, with some exceptions, is try and plan something where there’s something interactive to appeal to every kind of audience,” says Sharp. She likes to create vignettes, so guests who want to have a quiet cup of coffee can do so, and guests who want to party like it’s 1999 can too.

3. Family-Friendly, Eggnog-Free

“We are seeing people including families and making holiday parties about the family,” says Sheri Wagner, executive vice president of Star Trax Corporate Events in Southfield, Mich.

One family-friendly idea is to have guests cook their own meals at the table, hibachi-style, reports Christopher Greenslade, director of marketing and business development for Planning the Globe.

Bryan Shaffer, director of marketing for the Nashville Predators, used a robot for one crowd appreciation event where kids were present. But not just any robot — this one could talk to people and ask them questions through an operator surreptitiously controlling it with a controller that looks like a coffee cup. The robot, which came from Florida Robotics, also had an LED screen programmed to say “Go Predators!”

If you’re going for a holiday theme, the robot also comes in the Dancing Christmas Tree model.

Of course, a kid can only sit on Santa’s lap so many times, which brings us to a related trend: holiday parties without holiday themes.

“I don’t think any of our holiday parties are traditionally themed,” says Wagner. “From superhero themes, to dream themes, to fairy tales, it’s just more about a fun, creative good time.”

Heather Garnreiter, research and marketing manager for Los Angeles Party Designs, says her company decided on a “Wizard of Oz” theme for a series of children’s events that would accompany partners’ meetings. The events included a Ruby Red Relay where kids decorated oversized clown shoes with glitter and raced in them, hopscotch on the yellow brick road, and, from Absolute Amusements, a photo booth with customized software that superimposed a lion’s mane on the pictures.

A carnival theme may seem like an obvious choice, but a vintage carnival? Party By Design’s Ruff worked on one event where the client brought in vintage carnival games such as Whack-a-Mole and horse racing with water guns. “It was almost vaudevillian — people loved it,” he says.

Children’s games are also another fount of inspiration — Ruff has done events taking their cue from Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly.

For a different take on a Mexican or Southwestern theme, Hofford recommends a charreada, a traditional Mexican show of horsemanship. She suggests starting with a mariachi group playing in an area with Mexican-themed game booths, followed by a private rodeo. Banners can line the arena to promote sponsors or your company as riders perform the paso de la muerte and other feats.

The crowd can get in on the act with something a little more tame — putting a pair of bloomers on a bull (usually replaced by a small calf at the last moment, much to the relief of participants), or goat milking (extra points for tasting the fruit of your labor).