Ahh, the lunch & learn. Free food in exchange for a participant's attention and buy-in. What's not to love?

A lot. 

Audiences are savvy; they know what a lunch & learn tends to be--a thinly-veiled pitch trying to sell them on something in exchange for some pizza and their valuable time. It's no surprise, then, that audiences don't come into a lunch & learn with the most open of minds. In fact, many come in thinking, defensively, "You're not going to sell ME."

This, unsurprisingly, does not make them receptive to your information. They exist on the spectrum of indifference to active resistance. 

However, you can break down this defensiveness almost immediately and turn a skeptical or bored audience into raving fans--and it's as easy as incorporating a game show. 

Why Game Shows?

1. Competition: Structuring the event as a competition engages the audience's sense of play and activates their desire to show off their knowledge (and win!). 

2. Interaction: This leads to the lunch and learn being an active experience instead of a passive experience. Not only are participants interacting with the presenter, but they're also engaging with their peers as teammates, discussing answers, and becoming involved with the content.

3. Message Reinforcement: This direct interaction leads to content and message reinforcement. The game questions are a content review, and they can lead to deeper level of curiosity and understanding. Audience members pay closer attention to the content when they know it will help them (win the game) later on. 

4. Emotional Experience (i.e. FUN): Game shows are a break from talking AT people; giving them an energetic experience that engages their emotions (emotional engagement also correlates with greater content retention). Aside from being extremely effective, they're also a lot of FUN. 

When to Use a Game Show in Your Lunch and Learn?

1. Beginning: Playing a game round before the presentation begins both generates curiosity around the topic and sets the tone: This isn't going to be the normal lunch & learn--it's going to be an experience that audiences will enjoy. 

2. Throughout: Playing rounds throughout the event boosts energy and keeps it high even when the lunchtime lethargy hits. 

3. The End: Closing out your presentation with a game round leaves your audience with a positive impression--and that translates to more than just a good time, it's a feeling of goodwill about YOUR company and/or product. 

When our clients started using game shows as part of their lunch and learns--it wasn't hard to get attendees in the seats, staying in the seats, and staying engaged throughout. Using game shows is definitely more than food for thought. 

 An event can be stressful for attendees. You’re taking them out of their natural work environment, they’re missing the cadence of their regular communication, you’re pummeling them with information back-to-back over hours (often delivered in a deadly-dry way), and they’re told that this information is mission-critical for their jobs and livelihoods over the next year. Sometimes there are unpleasant truths on their minds that never are addressed, and they’re expected to carry on and learn new information.

No wonder we hear from attendees, “I felt like I HAD to have a drink at the end of the day.”

This is, understandably, a toxic environment for learning. You can’t absorb new information when you’re stressed out about your environment, or when you’re fixating on issues. This is why we emphasize making events less stressful through multiple techniques. 

1. Address issues up front. When we use AniMates, addressing the elephant-in-the-room issues allows presenters to acknowledge that something is on an audience’s mind so they’re receptive to subsequent information.

2. Incorporate play. Gamification and team competition allow attendees to practice with information in new ways—but that are fun and engaging. Giving them an opportunity to move around, cheer, show off their skills and knowledge relieves the stress of information overload and ALSO helps reinforce content. 

3. Give attendees time to absorb information. Events are an investment, so it makes sense that a lot of clients want to squeeze as much information as humanly possible into the agenda—you have attendees there, why not use every second? However, without giving attendees the ability to reflect on the material in some way—reviews, creating personal take-aways, gamification, etc., they reach information overload and everything washes over them. 

We normally think of events as a time to reconnect, to motivate, to get on-board with a consistent company message. We don’t generally think of them as stressful, but those stress points in design are exactly what can inhibit the learning objectives of the event. With a little modification, events can become environments that are conducive to learning and lightning rods for shared ideas—instead of places attendees feel glad to escape at the end of the day.

 

 So you want to highlight some of your sponsors at an event--in front of the audience--in a fun way. 

The sponsors, however, are a bit dry, a bit repetitive, and the audience couldn't reasonably be expected to know anything about the particulars of their business. The important thing is having a bit more exposure. 

So what do you do? A game show. 

But how do you create a game show when the audience doesn't know anything about the sponsor?

With the power of info screens and piggyback questions. For instance, we had a client that wanted an energetic end to their event while featuring the sponsors in a game show format. So what we did was turned a fact or facet of the sponsor into an only-tangentially-related, fun trivia question. 

Some examples. 

We showed this info screen about the sponsor--an exterior company.

Another info screen leading into a question...
With a fun, light-hearted trivia question that the audience had a reasonable chance at guessing or remembering. 

The game proceeded like that for all the sponsors, and in the end the audience had more sponsor name recognition--but also ended the event with energy, excitement, and fun. 

We've seen a lot of very unique things at events over the years.

Jugglers.
Ballerinas.
Mountain Climbers.
Bike Building.
Drum Circles.
Astronauts.
Live Monkeys. (And an occasional Monkee.)

You name it. We've seen it. All in the name of providing audience engagement. There is an idea that there has to be a *moment* at an event that stands out--that makes it the "wow".

We love this. But. What about the rest of the event? After the silk scarves settle and the dry ice evaporates...where is your audience at? How do you CONTINUE to engage them past a moment?

If you have the most powerful keynote speaker in the world...and then you go back to PowerPoint after PowerPoint...all you have is that (very impressive, granted) moment.

Interaction.

The key to engaging an audience throughout an event is interaction with the audience. Learning and communication is not a one-way experience; it's a two-way conversation. Audience participation is fundamental to their own engagement.

One way that we engage audiences throughout an event--not just in a moment--is by incorporating gamification. Not only does it provide interaction and engagement, but it enhances the event:
• It's teambuilding that occurs outside a single activity and goes through the event.
• It's reinforcement and review of key content and learning points.
• It's a way to keep energy up during the event--there's not one "fun part" to the whole event...the whole event is fun.

Want to see how you can incorporate gamification at your event? We wrote a guide! Leave a comment or contact us, and for more event tips and tricks check out www.live-spark.com

So you're using a game show at your event. Great idea.

You want to increase content retention, boost engagement, have a highly interactive experience and make the event energy soar...right?

But you want to make sure your game show doesn't fall flat. One of the key components to a game show is also one of the basics: The questions.

Event game shows can be made or broken on the strength of their questions. Here's why:

• The audience needs to feel the experience was worthwhile. If questions are too easy and everyone is getting 100% all the time--what's the point of the game? It's not competitive. It doesn't keep peoples' attention or inspire them to cheer on their team, after a while.

• The audience needs to feel success. If questions are too difficult it's likewise discouraging. Game play will drag. The audience needs to experience enough success to remain engaged.

• The audience needs to stay in the spirit of the game show. The audience can't feel so far behind or helpless that they "check out" of the game show. Scores need to be relatively even.

• The audience needs a positive overall experience. Questions shouldn't cause controversy (unless it's intentional).

To achieve these things, questions must achieve a balance of being challenging but with attainable answers.

Your questions are too hard:

• Trivia questions are obscure.
• Content questions are irrelevant.
• Questions are meant to stump or focus on tiny details. 
• The distractors are too close to the correct answer.
• There is no *objectively* correct answer.
• There are "trick" questions.

Your questions are too easy:

• ANY of your questions contain "all of the above" as the correct answer. 
• The correct answer option is longer/more detailed than the distractors.
• Distractors are too obvious/not close enough to the correct answer. 
• Difficulty is set way below the expertise of the audience.

Your questions are poorly constructed:

• The answer segments are longer than the question and more complex.
• Questions and answers don't make sense.
• It's unclear what's being asked.
• Multiple answers could apply where a single answer is needed. 
• "Trick" questions are used to confuse instead of challenge.