Welcome to our list of virtual happy hour games, ideas, and activities.
Virtual happy hours are social events held over video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Webex, and Google Meet. The goal of these events is to have fun and build relationships between attendees. Virtual happy hour ideas are specific games, activities, and themes that you can use to boost engagement further. Other names for these events include “online happy hours,” “remote happy hours,” “Zoom happy hours,” and “virtual social hours.”
These events are a subset of virtual team building, virtual team events, and virtual team games, and are useful for virtual employee engagement. These experiences are an online equivalent of work happy hours.
This list includes:
- virtual happy hour games to play with coworkers
- virtual happy hour activities
- virtual happy hour themes
- Zoom happy hour games
- virtual work happy hour ideas
- virtual cocktail party ideas
So, here is the list!
List of virtual happy hour games
The following list of virtual cocktail party ideas includes fun games to play with coworkers during virtual happy hours. These games are designed to be five to fifteen minutes each, so you can run them quickly as part of a larger meeting agenda.
1. MTV Cribs: Fridge Edition
MTV Cribs is a show where a camera crew follows a celebrity around their house. The celebrity shows off some of the house features and cool stuff they collect. “This is my third hot tub that I only use for parties,” you might hear these fancy people say.
MTV Cribs: Fridge Edition is just like the show but with fewer trophy display cases. For this virtual happy hour activity, challenge three of your attendees to do a virtual tour of their kitchen. Start with the counters, then go to the cupboards, and finally, the big reveal: inside the fridge.
Other people on the call should be an active audience, cheering, asking questions, and shaming the hosts for their wilted lettuce. Record the sessions and archive them as a unique moment in organizational history.
2. Something in Common
Something in Common is an icebreaker game you can play during virtual happy hours. To start off, divide your people into breakout rooms with four or five people each. The group members have three minutes to find the three most unique things they have in common. The emphasis is on uniqueness because “we all have ears” is boring, but “we all cooked corn on the cob in the last week” is novel and interesting.
Check out our more fun virtual icebreakers.
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3. Virtual Happy Hour Bingo
Virtual Happy Hour Bingo is a type of Online Team Building Bingo.
One way to increase engagement during remote happy hours is to give your people something active to do throughout the session. Bingo fulfills this need nicely by providing prompts and clues for your people to listen to and check off throughout your call.
Here is a game board you can use:
Right click + “save as” to download
Virtual Happy Hour bingo is a fun, easy, and familiar way to integrate games into your virtual happy hour.
4. Online Office Games (Hosted)
Online Office Games is a fully hosted series of games you can play on your next virtual happy hour.
This experience includes the following:
- 90 minutes with a world-class host
- wildly fun trivia and icebreakers
- a fun communication game called “Can you hear me now?”
Online Office Games is one of the world’s most popular virtual team building activities, with 150,000+ guests to date. To help your teams connect, be sure to add Online Office Games to your agenda!
Learn more about Online Office Games.
5. Virtual Happy Hour Trivia
A quick round of trivia is familiar, refreshing, and a great way to encourage interaction on your next virtual happy hour.
For a successful round of trivia, you need:
- An engaging host.
- Good questions.
- A game format.
And that’s it; anything else, like technology or similar resources, is optional.
For the engaging host, we recommend asking for volunteers. The trivia host doesn’t have to be the event planner or manager; it could be any team member that wants to take on the role. Provide paid time for the person to prepare.
Here is a list of virtual happy hour trivia questions you can use:
Click the image to download the PDF of 10 questions.
And check out our post about how to play virtual happy hour trivia for rules and guidelines.
Most trivia adapts well to an online format, so you can do a variety of “name that tune” style trivia, pub trivia, and more. One recommendation is to try to include action items in your virtual happy hour trivia because sitting in front of a soul-sucking screen the entire time usually doesn’t maximize engagement.
The easiest way to make your own virtual happy hour trivia questions is to Google a subject that is relevant to your audience for “weird facts about _________” and then turn that list into multiple-choice questions. For example, “weird facts about virtual happy hours” for a very meta approach.
If you prefer a more hands-off approach, then we can host your next virtual happy hour trivia for you!
Our virtual trivia sessions are 60 minutes and are available via Zoom, Webex, Meet, and other platforms.
Key features of this experience include:
- a 60-minute session led by a world-class host
- icebreakers to start conversations and help create team names
- tailor-made questions or themed trivia in several categories
- clever pun-based wordplay and buzzer-style questions
For a personalized touch, you can even customize the trivia questions or send participants s’mores kits or cocktail kits. To help teams unwind and build lasting friendships, add Virtual Team Trivia to your agenda!
Learn more about Virtual Team Trivia.
Check out more hosted virtual team building events.
6. “I’ll drink to that”
“I’ll drink to that” is a drinking game you can play during virtual happy hours, either with or without alcohol. Personally, I prefer ginger and turmeric tea.
To play this game, decide on a specific phrase that acts as a trigger to take a drink. The phrase should be both common and a little obscure. For example:
- “Oh my goodness.”
- “What do you think?”
- “Can everyone hear me?”
Each time you hear the phrase, everyone says, “I’ll drink to that,” and takes a sip of their drink.
Here are more drinking games to play on Zoom and a list of virtual mixology classes.
7. The Question Game
Have you played the question game? Would you know if you did? How long do the questions go?
The answer to that last question is, “As long as you can keep it up!”
Playing The Question Game is simple, challenging, and fun. To play:
- One player asks another player a question.
- That player must respond with a question directed at another player.
- That player must respond with a question and redirect as well.
- Keep going until the questions stop.
I played The Question Game tonight. It was fun; or was it?
Here are more question games you can play.
8. The Statement Game
The Statement Game is the opposite of The Question Game.
To play, one person starts with a statement and then passes it to the next player. That person responds with a statement and continues the conversation. Your goal is both to continue the chain of logic and continue making statements as long as you can.
The game ends when someone asks a question or you fail to make a statement within five seconds.
9. Virtual Werewolf
Werewolf is a popular game where some players become wolves, others become villagers, and you operate a little like the show Survivor voting people off the island. This game is great for virtual happy hours because no special equipment is involved, just a stable internet connection, a little strategy, and a whole lot of talking.
For the full rules, check out our guide to playing Werewolf at work.
10. Sneak It In
In the movie Super Troopers, characters play a game that involves working the word “meow” as many times as possible into a routine traffic stop. Sneak It In follows a similar premise. At the start of your virtual happy hour, each attendee receives a secret word such as “kumquat,” “railroad,” or “jet ski.” Players attempt to work the word into conversation as many times as possible without others noticing. Participants gain a point for every successful mention but lose all points if found out.
This game is also conducive to team play. When the game begins, teams split up into breakout rooms to discuss strategy. Over the course of the game, each team tries to stealthily drop the buzzword while rooting out other teams’ words.
11. Noisy Charades
In regular charades, players mime an idea using only actions, no words. Noisy charades flips the concept so that players can only use words but no actions.
A few examples of backward charades prompts include:
- The Macarena
- Making pizza dough
- Throwing a football
- Shaking hands
- Walking a tightrope
- Lassoing an animal
Of course, the player cannot use the assigned word. To make the game more challenging, you can also ban adjacent words. For instance, with the pizza example, consider banning “tomato” and “mozzarella”, while you may ban “string”, “rope”, and “cowboy” for lasso.
Because human beings often rely on body language as a communication aid, describing concepts with only words can be deceptively hard.
If you prefer traditional charades, you can use a random charades generator for your prompts.
12. Most Likely To
Most Likely To is a simple game. To play, the leader poses a prompt, and the other participants respond by voting on which teammate is most likely to perform that action.
Some sample most likely to prompts are:
- Who is most likely to run away to join the circus?
- Who is most likely to wind up on the news?
- Who is most likely to help you move?
- Who is most likely to win the lottery?
- Who is most likely to have a movie made about their life?
- Who is most likely to forget a birthday?
- Who is most likely to visit Antarctica?
- Who is most likely to assume the role of leader in a zombie apocalypse?
- Who is most likely to believe that unicorns exist?
Web conference software makes the game a cinch, as you can prepare a poll template with all attendees’ names, and then cast, collect, and display votes instantly.
The player who collects the most votes each round must take a drink. If your team is not drinking that day, then have players perform a silly act like five jumping jacks.
Pro tip: Encourage attendees to discuss the reasoning behind their choices to stir up some debate, especially if someone votes differently from the rest of the pack.
Here are more most likely to questions for work.
List of virtual happy hour activities
Most games are activities, but not every activity is a game. This list includes fun activities that can enhance your next virtual happy hour.
13. Margarita Making Class (Hosted)
Margarita Making Class is a fully facilitated virtual happy hour optimized for team building. During the event, the bartending host teaches your team to make drinks and then leads a series of fun games.
Here is what you can expect:
- 90 minutes with a high-caliber host
- kits shipped straight to participants with cocktail or mocktail ingredients
- spirited activities and games
- instructions on crafting delicious cocktails
We have run hundreds of events for companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Netflix. We would love to run a virtual happy hour for your team too!
Learn more about Margarita Making Class, and check out this list of virtual happy hour kits.
14. Virtual Happy Hour Icebreakers
Starting a virtual happy hour with five minutes of icebreaker questions can drastically improve the tone of the entire experience. I recommend that you use fun icebreakers, like:
- Where would you haunt for all eternity?
- Pancakes of waffles?
- Which song can you listen to over and over again?
- On a scale of 1 to 5, how are your guacamole-making skills and why?
Here is a full list of icebreaker questions for virtual meetings and a list of Zoom icebreaker questions.
Quick tip: Have each participant in the virtual happy hour icebreakers announce the next person up before sharing an answer. Virtual calls lack the visual cue of standing in a circle, so you need to be very deliberate about the order.
15. Compliment Train
Nothing quite beats hearing praise about ourselves, other than maybe heaping it onto our coworkers. For the compliment train, each person takes a turn complimenting another attendee, and then that person chooses someone that hasn’t been complimented yet to give their own.
The Compliment Train is a fun way to encourage employee appreciation and recognition and is effective because it happens at a peer level.
16. Virtual Happy Hour Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts can be a fun addition to your virtual work happy hour ideas that unite your people around a common cause. That is because it usually involves solving clues and racing against time to beat the other teams. This format doesn’t work very well for virtual happy hours, which are typically short in duration and hard to collaborate during.
Instead, do a lightning round scavenger hunt:
- Organize your people into teams for point allocation.
- Announce a series of objects one by one.
- Attendees race to find the object.
- Players win points for their team by being the first to show the object on the screen.
For example, you could prompt your people to find a curling iron, a go-to breakfast item, or their favorite socks. Rinse and repeat until the fun dries up.
Pro tip: Instead of gathering items like mugs and dictionaries, try to select items that have some personal affinity. For example, you could ask participants to grab their favorite mug or the last book they read. These personal connections provide the opportunity to share and make connections.
For a successful hunt, you really just need a list of items and rules, so here is our resource with both: How to Run a Virtual Scavenger Hunt.
17. The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Young Michael once called a radio station and asked that the host play The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Nylons. I was a fool that hadn’t yet been exposed to the harsh realities of cover songs.
Nonetheless, I would like to share with you one of the modestly fun remote happy hour activities known as The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Here are the rules:
- The host plays the infamous song from my radio-troubled childhood.
- Encourage your attendees to sing along with the lyrics.
- Every time The Tokens say the words “The lion sleeps tonight,” everyone closes their eyes and simulates sleep.
- The last person to open their eyes each time gets 1 point. If the song says the lion phrase again before you open your eyes, then you lose 5 points and can go negative.
Here is The Lion Sleeps Tonight for your reference:
You can do this activity with other songs too, but Another One Bites the Dust is less fun. Depending on your squad, “sippin’ on gin and juice” could be a hit.
18. Ocean’s 5 or So
Ocean’s 11 is a heist movie that includes George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, and some other fancy people. George Clooney, like me, was recently spotted in the Canary Islands.
Ocean’s 5 or So is a virtual happy hour activity that explores similar concepts. For this activity, assign your people to small breakout rooms with around five people. Each group must develop a wildly ambitious heist of a high-profile target. When you bring everyone back to the main room, have the groups present their devious plans and vote on which one is most likely to succeed.
19. Staring Contests
One idea for virtual happy hour games to play with coworkers is to hold a staring contest. Choose two people to face off and see who blinks first. The winner then competes against the next person, and so on. A staring contest often ends super quickly, so you should combine this idea with others on the list.
20. Useless Talent Show
Most folks have a useless talent or two, like wiggling ears or nose-whistling the Star Spangled Banner. However, they rarely get the chance to show these abilities off. A useless talent show puts these silly skills on display by having each participant share a pointless talent. No two participants can share the same skill, so repeats must think of a new silly ability to unveil.
Some examples of useless talents are:
- Double-jointed features
- Spinning a coin
- Juggling
- Reciting movies from memory
- Animal impressions
Even if these skills have no practical applications, the peer applause and laughter that follows can quickly boost morale.
Here is a guide on how to do online talent shows.
21. Dance Tag
Dance Tag is an activity to get your crew moving. The first player will do a dance move, then call out the name of another attendee. The new “it” person will repeat the first player’s move, perform a new move, and then call on another teammate. The exercise continues, with every player performing the move of the previous person and a daring new move, until all players have had a turn, the song ends, or the gang gets tired of grooving. Record the video call to save and replay the results.
To up the challenge, you can ask players to perform every preceding move in sequence. Anyone who botches the order is out.
22. Truth is Stranger Than Fiction
The problem with having a crazy story is that you usually have to wait for the right opening to tell the unbelievable tale. Truth is Stranger than Fiction is a virtual happy hour activity that invites guests to tell strange and wacky stories.
To get the conversation rolling, consider the following prompts:
- What story do you always want to tell but rarely get the chance?
- What is the strangest coincidence that has ever happened to you or that you have ever heard of?
- What story sounds like it is made up, even if it is not?
- What is the most incredible fact that you know?
These outlandish tales and topics that stem from these prompts are sure to keep your conversation lively and interesting.
List of virtual happy hour themes
An easy way to increase excitement and engagement for virtual happy hours is to give them a theme. For example, you could do an 80s party, a Halloween dress up, or high tea.
23. 80s Party
In the early 2000s, retro 80s parties were all the rage on college campuses across North America. Now, you can have your Vanilla Ice and eat it, too, with an online 80s Party during your next virtual happy hour.
A successful 80s-themed party has several key elements:
- 80s music. Your playlist will probably include Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, and Kris Kross.
- 80s clothing. Bring your colorful swag and shiny bling.
- 80s hairdos. You don’t have to cut your hair into a mullet, but you could.
Here is some inspiration for your party:
You could choose another decade for your virtual happy hour theme too, for example, the 50s.
24. Halloween Anytime
In the real world, sometimes it is Halloween, and sometimes it isn’t. Online, you can have Halloween any damn time you please.
Halloween Anytime is a way to do virtual happy hours with a haunted aesthetic. Here is how it works:
- Encourage your team members to dress up in Halloween costumes.
- Prepare spooky backgrounds for the virtual conference call.
- Ask icebreaker questions like “Where would you haunt for all of eternity?
- Tell ghost stories.
Halloween Anytime is a fun way to get together that breaks the normal expectations of what a virtual happy should be. You can do iterations on this idea with Christmas Any Time or Thanksgiving Any Time, but Halloween is better.
For more spooky happy hour inspiration, check out our list of virtual Halloween party ideas.
25. Black Tie Event
Just because your Zoom happy hour is virtual doesn’t mean you can’t dress up. For your “black tie” theme, nobody actually has to wear a black tie. Instead, encourage your attendees to:
- Wear a suit and tie, dress, or other formal clothing.
- Prepare a small plate of bougie appetizers.
- Make a fancy people drink, like a Manhattan or scotch on the rocks.
- Include icebreakers like, “Which famous celebrity would sing at your wedding?”
Black Tie-themed events can also be excellent for virtual fundraising.
26. Nicolas Cage Movies
The one thing that is definitely true of Nicolas Cage movies is that there are a lot of them. For example: Face/Off, Con Air, and National Treasure. For this themed virtual happy hour, your teammates can embrace their inner Cage and celebrate his work.
Ideas:
- Dress up like Nicolas Cage from your favorite movie.
- Play a game of “Identify which movie the quote is from.”
- Do Nicolas Cage-themed trivia.
- Watch a Nicolas Cage movie together.
- Do a National Treasure-inspired virtual scavenger hunt.
While this theme is obviously very Nicolas Cage-focused, it doesn’t have to be. You could replace the actor’s name with Sylvester Stallone, Mariah Carey, Isaac Asimov, or anyone else with prolific work.
27. Virtual Holiday Party Theme
My coworker, Carly, is a little obsessed with Christmas. Chances are that someone on your team is too, or maybe the holidays are just approaching. Either way, a virtual holiday party-themed happy hour can be a great way to connect your people in the holiday spirit.
For this theme:
- Send cute holiday cards in advance.
- Start with holiday-themed music, like Jingle Bells and Twelve Days of Christmas.
- Include an ugly holiday sweater competition.
- Ask icebreakers like, “What is your earliest memory of the holidays?”
Check out our list of virtual holiday party ideas for more inspiration.
28. Random New Year’s Eve
With champagne free-flowing, New Year’s Eve is the booziest of the holidays, and thus totally suits the theme for a virtual happy hour.
Regardless of whether January is far away, your team can have the best New Year’s Eve party ever by following these steps:
- Get glammed up in cocktail dresses, suits, and plenty of sparkle.
- Have confetti and noisemakers handy.
- Countdown from ten during the call.
- Cheer “Happy New Years!”
- Share resolutions and reflections.
A New Year’s theme is ideal for any time the team needs re-energizing or a fresh start.
29. International Delight
Sharing a drink with coworkers and friends is an internationally beloved pastime, and you can pay tribute to that fact by hosting an international-themed happy hour.
International online happy hour ideas include:
- Saying cheers in different languages
- Enjoying cocktails and bar food from around the world
- Swapping travel stories
- Compiling slideshows of teammate vacation pictures
- Competing in geography and cultural trivia
Travel and world culture are popular passions, so choosing this theme lets teammates connect and bond over shared wanderlust.
30. Life’s a Beach
The carefree atmosphere of a beach is the perfect backdrop to help your crew unwind. By throwing a beach-themed happy hour, you capture all the ease and fun of summer while also relaxing with a drink in hand.
Some beach-friendly virtual happy hour ideas include:
- Setting Zoom backgrounds to tropical locations
- Curating a summery playlist with songs like Wipeout by the Surfaris, California Girls by Katy Perry, and anything by the Beach Boys
- Mixing and sipping exotic cocktails like Mai Tais, Daiquiris, and Piña Coladas. Don’t forget the paper umbrellas!
- Turning nautical games like Battleship and Ships and Sailors into drinking games
- Running a scavenger hunt, where players scrounge up items like seashells, dolphin toys, and sunscreen
If you live in a colder climate, then this theme is an especially great way to chase away the crew’s midwinter blues.
Conclusion
Well, that’s our list of virtual happy hour ideas for work! You can check out our posts on video conference games, fun games to play on Webex, and the best Zoom Games for adults for more ideas.
You can develop your own virtual activities and games to play during online happy hours too. Nearly anything framed as a fun game can be a quick way to engage with your coworkers.
Next, check out this list of improv games for Zoom, these fun team building activities for conference calls, these free virtual team building ideas, and the best ideas for virtual team bonding.
We also have a list of the best online group games, a list of the best Zoom icebreakers, a list of fun virtual activities for groups, and a list of fun virtual corporate event ideas.
I think a fabulous addition to a 50s Party would be the “Jello Recipe of Doom” Everyone could search to find the most baffling example of a “Jello Recipe of Doom” (ie shrimp jello salad) to share with the team – bonus points if anyone is willing to make and *eat* their contribution. This could lead to a fun discussion about how Americans’ tastes have changed over the years and what other foods were nothing more than a brief fad (green ketchup anyone?)
My “Useless” Talent Show. During this virtual happy hour, all team members have to demonstrate one talent that is completely “useless” but is a talent non-the-less. For example, moving one’s ears, blowing through a pen as a musical instrument, making extravagant paper origami flowers, etc. The winner will be decided with an anonymous poll and will receive an official certificate to print as being the winner of My “Useless” Talent Show.
I LOVE this idea!
A fun edition to the Halloween Anytime Happy Hour would be an icebreaker of ways your past life would have lived and died. Examples of this include: Being a scrappy girl who disguises herself as a boy to work on a boat and then dies from scurvy; Being a solider in the trenches during one of the World Wars and then dying of trench foot; Being an aristocrat during the French Revolution and being guillotined. At first, this game may seem weird and not fun, but trust me, people come up with the craziest stuff that will have everyone laughing.
I think a great team building game would be a game of “Team Clue”. Each individual person in the group would be given a name, a character to play the roll of, an occupation, and one tool that works with them and their occupation. There has been a problem, whether it is a murder or a robbery, and there has to be clues to try and narrow down who did it!
Due to quarantine, everyone has riffling through the depths of their pantries and refrigerators to find what they need to cook dinner while staying at home. Test your coworkers’ new-found cooking and problem solving skills by competing in “Chopped: Seclusion Showdown.” All Contestants must use a set list of ingredients that they are likely to already have such as instant coffee, over-ripe bananas, canned chicken, and frozen corn. Each person is also able to add any other ingredients they have handy to enhance their dish to create a magnificent meal in under an hour. When time is up, contestants will be judged on their creativity, presentation, and appetite appeal (how many of their coworkers would be willing to try the dish). This game gets you out from behind your desks to engage in a little friendly competition.
Great ideas the 5 of them! Loved them and would like to practice a few.
I think that for “Staring Contests” what would be even better is for the participants to have a silly/funny hat! I bet they’d laugh after some time and would blink faster lol!
Making arts and crafts and teaching all of them on a video chat is great more now with The Covid Quarantine.
You can also create a challenge to do while we are at home something we always wanted to learn for example : learn a new dish, learn to bake etc.
FRIvia (Friday Trivia – Family Friendly)
Players and their home-office team can pop their popcorn, have their coasters ready to play trivia. This can include general knowledge, movie buzz, world history, and geography, or current affairs questions.
The Dance Challenge. All team members will be given (or can decide on) a fun and easy dance challenge from TikTok and they have to work together to recreate it.
I think a great addition to virtual happy hours would be a spin on hide and seek – you could have one person come up with a list of items around the house to find, set a timer and the person who finds the most items in the least amount of time would win. This could easily be turned into a drinking game as well!
I think bringing the name of your favorite 80s television show and saying/tagline are fun additions!
The Where Am I From Game
Everyone thinks up three features about where they are from and everyone has to guess where that is. Everyone will get to know each other a little more and have fun learning personalized quirks about places around the world.
“Gotta Go Fast”
This game will be an indoor scavenger hunt. A host will call out a name of a common household object and the first participant who runs to collect the item, bring it back to show it on screen, and type the name of the item in the chat box will win that round. This is a good game to get people moving around out of their seat and laughing!
A spicy addition to the Halloween Any Time would be to make your favorite drink but with a spooky twist! Another way to break the ice could be to tell funny stories about previous Halloween costumes and experiences.
These are all great ideas! I think something like a virtual scavenger hunt would be fun to try out. Encourages teams to think outside the box, test their internet sleuthing skills, and is sure to cause a bunch of laughs!
Waooo. Great ideas. It’s fun with learning.
Usually when you go with this kind of activities with different back ground people so you learn allot from it.
I think the staring contest would be great mixed with truth or dare. The loser has to do a dare or something related to losing a bet. For example, loser buys drinks for the team or something like that. My favorite of these was the 80’s party. It would be great to play scattergories with 80’s icons.
An idea I think would be really fun and provide a unique twist to a virtual happy hour would be a pet party. Each person would invite their pet (of whatever species) to be with them for the party, or as long as they wanted to be there. For those who don’t have or want pets, challenge them to create their own pet- a rock, a plant, make something from toys or food. This helps make everyone excited about animals or other cute things, while also giving people a chance to socialize more.
I think fun Virtual Happy Hour idea would be a Trivia Night. Players can compete individually or as a team to see who knows the most. Rounds could be traditional Q&A, charades-style, guess-the-drawing, or encourage the use of props found in home or offices to encourage everyone to participate.
I think a great addition to the 80s/Decades Party could be activities such as trivia, guessing games, musical chairs, costume contests, and so on. Giving the happy hour a specific agenda could increase engagement and allow for even more fun to be had. Trivia and guessing games could involve questions about the decade’s fashion, technology, lingo, and pop culture. Musical chairs could be played to songs from the decade’s top 100. The costume contest could have categories that are relevant to the decade (i.e, a 60s Party where everyone votes on “Grooviest Costume”). Another similar idea could be to break people into teams and assign each group a decade. From there, each team dresses the part and competes in a series of games, trivia, and contests to determine which is the “best” decade.
Another fun virtual happy hour idea would be a twist on the “decades” party but have the theme be “Gen Z”. Instead of pulling out your best 60s or 80s looks and remember trivia about the 1970s, you’d get to see your office mates try to figure out what tiktok is and how to do the Renegade. Bonus points if anyone brings a Hydroflask!
Hi! I think a great idea would be a storytelling singing game, where starting with one person would sing a note and/or word and going in order (either alphabetically or where their picture appears on the screen) the next person would jump in and sing their own note and word, and the challenge would be to make a song that makes sense! It could be played with just two people to make it easier, and then whoever sings a weird note or says something that doesn’t make sense would be out and the next person has to jump in! This could also be done in reverse, where the challenge is to not make any sense, and whoever says something that makes sense loses and it’s on to the next person!
The game is Desert Island. Everyone goes around and has to say three books, three movies, and three items they’d want on a desert island with them. Everyone gets to know much more about the people on the happy hour call, and it’s a fantastic way to get new book and movie recommendations from people on your team, or find out if you had more in common with your team than you realized!
Hello.
All of these are fun ideas, but how about having a virtual talent show happy hour. Just as we’ve seen in the Miss America competition, or movies like Napoleon Dynamite – whether done with co-workers, friends, or family – once a week there can be 2-3 performers showing off their talents through music, dance, magic tricks, impersonations, or being able to put lipstick on with no hands while holding it between your breast, etc.; Ideas are limitless. By the end of the virtual happy hour talent show the group could then vote and handout virtual trophies to the first, second, and third place winners. For the following virtual talent show happy hours, the previous contestants can each pick the next performer, and so on. Activities like these give us an opportunity to see how each one of us has some unique talent to offer, no matter how silly it may be or look. Bringing together people through laughter and creativity, particularly in a times like this, is a great way to connect with others in ways that we may not have ever experienced.
All five are great ideas! It would be fun to have an arts & craft where people can color in coloring books or apps, work on a project, paint, weaving, knitting, jewelry, embroidery, and string art. This would allow everyone to bring out their creativity and fun to create something that is physical.
I think a fun virtual happy hour idea would be to play a game of “Who’s Most Likely To?” Players can either look up questions online and share screen or come up with questions on their own. Then someone will say their question and after, all players will simultaneously say the name of the person that they think is most likely to do that question. Which ever player gets the most shoutouts drinks. This is a fun way to make happy hour more exciting and to get to know the people you are doing it with even more!
Dressing up is a great way to up the fun factor on virtual happy hours, and it’s especially fun to dress up as another person in the office! You can have participants imitate the style and mannerisms of coworkers–even make their favorite drink. Facilitators may be interested in assigning partners before the party so that other guests have to guess who is who. This also offers the opportunity to foster connections between people who might not already know each other well. Participants are encouraged to get in touch with their partner ahead of time to learn about their passions, style, and role in the office community. The winner of the identity-swap can be awarded for their effort and engagement with a fun prize like a month-long subscription to Disney Plus or a DIY cocktail kit.
If you’re looking for a virtual happy hour game – I am a Bingo fanatic. On Tuesdays, I accompany my friend’s Grandma to our Community Centre for Bingo Night. Bingo would be an easy happy hour event to bring online.
Distribute the player cards to all coworkers via email for print. Carefully select a bingo caller you feel will really fit the part: Possibly suggest they dress up, take on an accent, turn up the heat with their attitude, the bigger the personality, the better the calls, the better the time. Have them download a virtual ball tank The caller shares their screen and calls the game. Easy to implement and get everyone on board and beyond fun! Depending on budget, maybe even throw in some awesome prizes for each “B-I-N-G-O!”.
P.S. Happy Hour – Karaoke Edition… count me in!
I think a good twist on the Ocean’s 5 Happy Hour would be a “Mafia Happy Hour”. For this the facilitator would pre-determine everyone in the group as one of the following characters: townsperson, mafia and doctor. Depending on the size of the group there could be one each of mafia and doctor or there could be multiple for a large group. The rest of the people would be townspeople.
All the townspeople have been told ahead of time by the facilitator the “sign” for each character, Mafia and Doctor. If you see someone give you a special sign than you know that the Mafia has killed you or if you’re already dead the Doctor has revived you. The group just has a regular happy hour but meanwhile the Mafia starts killing. He/She does this by making eye contact with someone while delivering the “sign”. If killed the person has to say “Mafia killed me. I’m dead” They still participate in the happy hour and the Doctor could revive them. The rest of the people have to figure out who is the Mafia before the majority of the people are dead.
Yes And…
Improv comics can tell amazing stories that have audience shouting “You must have planned that!” because it seems impossible that they made it up on the spot.
This team building activity teaches the foundational rules of improv, so your team can make up wild stories, play hilarious games and develop new skills. Studies show that improv is useful for increasing team dynamics, EQ and having heaps of fun.
Is everyone feeling lucky? My idea piggybacks off of murder mystery with a virtual game of Yahtzee. We start by grabbing a cold beverage, mocking up our scoresheets as a team, and then we starting rolling the dice. Not a fan of Yahtzee, let’s play Pictionary. Not in the mood to draw, we got Apples to Apples. Board games are a blast and are a great way to get to know your team!
I think a fun activity would be interviewing one another, asking a question like, what was your favorite childhood memory? Or perhaps tailor the questions based on the company.
Virtual Happy Hour opportunity: “I Spy” using what appears around your coworkers in their WFH stations. Great way to learn more about your teammates! To take it up a notch, coworkers can plant company objects in the background for a more “Where’s Waldo” experience.
Guess the Celebrity
How to Play:
1. Pick a player to start by thinking of a celebrity. This will be Player 1.
2. For the first round, Player 1 will provide one clue of the celebrity they’re thinking about. All other players will have 1 minute to guess who it is. If no one guesses the celebrity, game moves on to Round 2.
3. In Round 2, Player 1 will provide a second clue of the celebrity they are thinking about. All other players will now only have :30 to guess the celebrity. If no one guesses the celebrity, game moves on to Round 3.
4. Round 3, Player 1 will provide a third clue of the celebrity they are thinking about. All other players will now only have :15 to guess the celebrity. If no one guesses the celebrity, all players have to drink.
5. If a player guesses the celebrity right, all other players, except Player 1, have to drink.
The Virtual Scavenger Hunt game. If you are on a virtual call, like Zoom, let’s say to learn tips and tricks about working remotely, everyone that contributed to the slides can add something related to the scavenger hunt in their slide. If I were responsible for the slide about staying disciplined while working from home, I would probably add a photo of wine (on the list of things not to do while working remotely.) Wine would be an item they would need to find on the scavenger hunt.
Another idea is to have a game where each player has a specific word they are not allowed to say. It can be simple words such as “like” or “what” or more specific/job related such as “client” or “project”. Whenever a player says a forbidden word they have to drink, or you can play where they get an additional forbidden word. This game is good because you can tailor it to a happy hours needs based on the objective or group of people.
The starting contest is always fun and funny. It might be interested to have people go against pets or people and their pet against another person and their pet. The pet to get added once the people are staring; a surprise element that might cause another person to falter.
Kick the 80’s theme night up a notch with a “Name That Song” competition! Mix it up with a different decade/genre for each round (70’s disco; 80’s classic rock; 90’s pop). The winner gets to pick the next happy hour theme, or raise the stakes with a cash prize!
A Virtual “Paint & Sip” could be fun. Find a famous painting everyone can easily replicate, and participants partake in whatever wine or cocktail they’ve got lying around at home and whatever art supplies they have access to. Each person makes their own interpretation of the painting, but it doesn’t even have to be an exact reproduction of the original painting, it can be one’s own perception of it, like a play on the title or the theme of the painting! People share their thoughts and inventions at 15 min intervals!
The Ruined Paradise Game
Players divide themselves into two teams. Each turn, one member of each team needs to add a sentence to a story. The Paradise team has to say something positive, while the Ruined team has to add a negative detail that counters the positive statement given. Each team member must contribute exactly one sentence. At the end, one player who is left to be the judge will determine if the Paradise is ruined or not. Cycle between judges based first on volunteers, but, should no judge volunteer, the previous judge will think of a number between 1 and 100, with the person guessing closest becoming the next judge. Teams will switch turns from Paradise to Ruined each round.
I think a virtual fashion show would be fun! Everyone can put together their most unique outfit with anything they have laying around the house that they would like to use. They don’t just have to use clothes. It can be anything. Like a pillow dress!
For the “Halloween Any Time” happy hour, you could add Halloween Pictionary – divvy up into teams and have participants draw Halloween-themed concepts. You could also have a “Candy Corn Horrors” competition and invite everyone to create something out of a certain # of candy corns. I’ve never met anyone who actually wants to eat those little nasties – they’re really designed for edible art projects and jewelry…and everyone will be able to participate because no matter age, gender, background – most everyone has had experiences of Halloween (not so with 80s themes or Ocean’s 11).
Scavenger hunt! Depending on the technology, the attendees could create groups and whichever team is able to get the most things on the Scavenger list gets a prize (Think off-site lunch sponsored by the company or Gift Cards). It’s communal, competitive, interactive and it can be humorous because the lists could have slightly awkward items on it and when someone comes forward with that item, it creates humor and humility.
I think a fun happy hour opportunity would be to play some sort of drinking game (that can be optional for those who choose not to drink). Games such as virtual cards against humanity, games by jackbox, virtual poker, or many other online options that are available for collaborative play. If thats not of interest playing a simple a game such as 7-13 could be a hoot! In this game you go around in the group and list the numbers one through thirteen but when you get to 7 you have to switch it to 13 and when you get to 13 you switch it so 7. Then at the end of the getting to the thirteenth number or 7 then you start to make up rules in exchange for one of the numbers. So for instance making the number 4 that you have to make animal noises instead of saying the number 4 when it comes to that number. The trick is to remember all the new added rules as the game goes on or you have to drink.
A TikTok dance challenge. Pick 3-4 of the viral TikTok dances and try to learn them. Dances like Doja Cat’s Say So or the Renegade challenge. After learning the dances a team can work together and create a TikTok video and post it.
Christmas in July – With a Twist might be a neat addition. In order to have Christmas in July we will need summertime foods that still follow the Christmas theme. Participants will be set into Break Out Rooms in small groups to field recipe ideas back and forth with each other. Each recipe must either use or include any of the following: cinnamon, ginger, or chestnuts. However, it does not have to be a dessert so if any team can come out with a full on meal using all three ingredients, then they can share that at the end when the groups come back into the Main Room.
A firm that specializes in communications or in the IT realm would benefit from a game involving Logic Gates. Logic gates are how computers work. All computers work on commands such as yes, no, and, or, xor, not…etc. Each command can be represented by an avatar or icon. The goal would be to split the groups and given the same amount of icons. The goal would be to see which team can make the most efficient engine in a given amount of time.
For example: Given a set of logic gates, your team must create a set in which a light bulb can be turned on by any button. The teams would then be given a lightbulb icon, two switches, and logic gates to make the device.
A name-based scavenger hunt would be an excellent way to show off individuals’ creativity while also allowing everyone to learn each others’ names and “favorite” things. For example, the list of team members would be in a specific order, then each team member would have 15-30 seconds to find an item in their home that matches the same letter of the team members’ name. It could then move on from there and have questions such as “grab your favorite snack food…” or “your favorite movie, book, etc”. Everyone could discuss in between rounds and allow the team members to learn each other’s likes and dislikes while building rapport.
Virtual Karaoke is a fun and funny way to enjoy a virtual happy hour. Much like a real karaoke night, there will be technical difficulties, some people who won’t sing, and some people to own the night.
In order to make this a bit more collaborative, each singer needs to either pick a duet or TWO back up singers. With the sound lag and the fun of singing your sides will ache with laughing.
All of these ideas are great. However, I believe the staring contest can be spiced up significantly. This can be changed with something like a staring contest royale: instead of one on one, everyone stares at each other and the last one standing wins.
Another activity I had in mind was a virtual chess tournament. Chess is one of the oldest games around and is very easy to play (mastering it is another challenge). People can set up rounds accordingly with levels of skill until there is one winner.
JukeBox – Everyone will go around the room, one by one, with a particular song in their head. They must hum or sing a part of the song (could be any part) and everyone else must guess what artist and song name it is! This is a way to learn new music and also focuses everyone.
It could be fun, and easy to arrange, for the happy hour crew to take part in some sort of trivia game. Every one for themselves, and the host of the happy hour can have some questions lined up about the industry, or basic information about the coworkers present. I’m definitely thinking about that episode of Friends where Rachel and Monica lose their apartment to Joey and Chandler! Prizes or other incentives could be a lot of fun too. There are so many virtual trivia nights now it could be a lot of fun to see how those work and incorporate it into your happy hour.
Picasso
You pick a category each round and are given prompts to draw. As each team member goes, the other team members will guess the drawing and submit their answers within a time frame. There are points rewarded for each close guess and the first person to guess 5 of their team members drawings wins the game!
The game Survivor is an exciting way to test your chances of winning the famous tv show. Well, without the being stranded on an island! However, you’ve still got to prove your quick thinking. To begin make sure to divide into two groups before getting ready to go head to head. Your tools will be a mighty pen and paper, as you’ll need somewhere to capture your imaginative ideas. Be sure to set a three minute timer and then begin collaborating with your team on what you’ll need to SURVIVE. Does someone need an endless supply of chocolate? Or a boat to sail away in? The opportunities are endless AND you’ll be given the chance to hear more about your friends and colleagues. Once your time is completed be sure to compare who needed what and why!
Household Horror Happy Hour
The Household Horror Happy Hour is a scary twist on the traditional home scavenger hunt. This game can either be played with individuals or teams in breakout rooms, depending on the number of people and how much time is allotted. Players are challenged to find one specific item in their house, that can either be an actual creepy item, something silly, or a simple item such as a pencil. Players are then challenged to tell the either real or fictional scary story of this object. Is it a heirloom passed down for generations that seems to change places when someone isn’t looking? Is it an old coffee mug that leaks ooze? Or is it just an old photo of a high school haircut that was just plain scary?
Get creative! Anything goes, as long as you’re having fun. Teams can use groups of objects, or one team member can bring an object that other team members tell a story about. Points can be awarded for each player, or a vote can be done to choose a winner. Feel free to adjust the rules to suit your situation!
One fun idea would be to have a taco-building activity where there will be ingredients laid out for the team to make the tacos themselves. Or they can work together in prepping the ingredients and cooking them with recipes given to them. There can be a taco trivia asking about taco-related questions and providing fun fact about tacos.
Cheers! – The game that gets harder, but more rewarding, as it goes on! After creating an order, each player takes turns counting. Player one, “One.” Player two, “Two,” and so on until you reach 21! Once you successfully count to 21. The player who 21 landed on will create a rule. Examples: Switch numbers 3 and 12. Or, instead of counting 4, bark like a dog! This goes on each round until someone messes up. When someone messes up, everyone drinks and you start over. When you reach 21, everyone raises their classes and yells “Cheers!”
Play pass the virtual question ball. Have someone in the group start the group off by answering a random question (there are many online sites you can do this with – I like: https://conversationstartersworld.com/random-question-generator/). Whoever answered the question gets to throw the “virtual ball” to the next person who then answers their random question. Continue this until everyone has gotten to answer at least one random question. This is a great way to get to know your co-workers better, build trust, and usually results in a lot of laughs.
Happy Hour Mad Lib
At the beginning of virtual happy hour, the host distributes a list of types of words needed to complete the mad lib (2 adjectives, country, verb, noun, etc.). Over the course of the happy hour, participants complete their lists from words said throughout the meeting. At the end, the mad lib is sent to everyone and each person can share their rendition.
Get to Know You Trivia With a Twist- Each person goes around introducing themselves and sharing 5 facts about themselves. The others must guess which fact sounds exaggerated. The person that guesses the exaggerated fact correct will be the next one to go but must add an additional exaggerated fact (up to a maximum of 5). Each person only gets one guess, and they are eliminated if they guess wrong.
Virtual Family Feud:
This would be a fun drinking game similar to Family Feud. Each person gets sent a red “buzzer” that makes the classic buzz noise while one person is assigned as the host. Everyone else is separated into two teams (to make it more simple and efficient) The host gets sent humorous question cards themed around working at home and alcohol. Whenever someone gets a question right they have to drink and so on and so forth.
Virtual Scattergories: Similar to the popular board game, there is a list of items everyone needs to think and write on their sheet of paper. The answers must start with the same letter that is established at the beginning of each round. What makes this unique is companies and groups can create their own lists and have fun with their coworkers/friends! If people are doing this with their friends, they can create lists with many inside jokes and have a lot of laughs!
The group will be split up into 4 teams. Using teambuilding.com’s sixteen cities, each team will be given 4 cities. Every individual in the group will share something they know about one of the cities that directly relates to their personality, travels, or just an asset they would like to share with the group. This way, everyone gets to share a little something about themselves, while others in the group get to know them simultaneously. Additionally, this gives the group an opportunity to learn something new about the cities in which teambuilding.com is focused.
Candy Land Trivia
Each team member would receive a bag of color coated candy (m&ms, skittles, etc). Each color would represent a different question or action and that team member gets to respond to it, and engage in open conversation with the rest of their team.
“Guess Who”
One player picks a celebrity and the others try to guess the celebrity by asking one description question at a time regarding the mystery character. Building a profile from your peers questions and you own you will be able to guess the person.
Sneak It In!
The group gets divided into smaller teams through breakout rooms. Depending on the size of the original group, you could split up into 2-6 teams. From there each team has to come up with a word or phrase that they need to sneak into the original group conversation without any of the other teams guessing what their word/phrase is. After a few minutes of brainstorming individually, each group comes back together as one. The goal is to incorporate your team’s word/phrase into the conversation as many times as possible without the other teams figuring out what your word/phrase is. The team who sneaks it in the most amount of times or doesn’t get caught by the end of the happy hour wins the game!
“Connect”
A person, whoever it is, mentions something. The next person has to connect it to another item. Event, person, tech, etc. It helps people establish knowledge bases and how they think.
“A Twist of Charades”
We’re taking charades to a new level by reversing it! In this version, everyone in the group will act out the word on the selected card while a single person in the group tries to guess the word. It’s madness, it’s mayhem, but it’s pretty damn fun.
The GIF Game- Each person from the group will take turns being the judge. The judge will give the group a topic such as TGIF, COVID-19, All I want for Christmas is ____. Each person in the group will have 2 minutes to find an animated GIF they think best interpreted the topic and send it in the chat. The judge gets to pick the winner and the winner gets a point. You can play as many rounds as you want.
Name, State, Animal, and Food
We send all participants out alphabet letters. And 1 by 1 we pick a letter and the person with the letter picked starting or ending in their name has to name something in all 4 categories that start with the letter picked. Oh, and there’s a 5 second time limit.
“DJ”
Over the years I’ve had many group outings with friends and we LOVE trivia. Not just any trivia though, trivia that reminds us of our childhood.
The way this game works:
One person(DJ) can choose a song, television theme song, or movie trailer. 1 point for correctly guessing the title of the song, show or movie; 3 points for the date! The person who receives 20 points(For the year 2020 😉 ), wins! Person who correctly gets the year, takes their turn as the DJ. This is a really fun game because it brings back nostalgia and of course, laughter.
Playing a game of modern “Guess Who”, utilizing on online secret santa generator, each person in the happy hour will be assigned another member. Instead of posting a ‘wish list’, each member would have posted answers to a series of questions about themselves (these are only visible to the person who receives them). Then- during the Happy Hour, you must pretend to be the person you were assigned utilizing their answers to the questions to help build their character, you can also use props and costumes as well (i.e. fake mustache). This would be a great game for coworkers specifically because it will help them get to know more about the other person!
“Toga Party and At-Home Olympics”
Great ideas, everyone! Another idea is a toga party and an at-home Olympics! Have everyone dress up in togas to set the mood for a Greco-Roman virtual happy hour theme! Potential at-home Olympic activities could be: 1. balancing a book on their heads for the duration of the games (balance/gymnastics), 2. beat(boxing) competition, 3. discus throw (using paper plates), 4. squat competition, 5. Athena/Minerva’s trivia (general or Greco-Roman-themed trivia), 6. Hermes/Mercury’s message decoding (emojis/images stand for phrases, the first to decode gains a point, the first to 5 points wins), 7. Ares/Mars’ “War” Virtual Card Game, 8. Apollo’s haiku contest (vote for the best/funniest poem), 9. Best toga, etc. There should be medals (real or virtual) for the winners!
Fishbowl– This is a combination of charades and Pictionary, done in three rounds. Break up into teams, then have someone choose a word or phrase, that they then have to communicate to their group. The first round they must draw the word or phrase, the second round is acting it out, and the third round you can only say one word that might describe it.
For example, Fish
Round one: draw a fish
Round two: act out a fish
Round three, spoken: “scales”
Portrait of a …
To take a live-action riff on the art museum challenge, everyone on the team either takes turns on different prompts or competes against one another on the same prompt to best dress up as a certain piece of artwork. All it takes is some scarves or clothing option, maybe some makeup, on hand and prepared slides of famous works of art. It’ll be a riot to see the types of personalities that reveal themselves – those who try to keep their look hidden until the last second reveal, those who really go for face painting, and those who maybe have one too many black t-shirts who are flabbergasted.
The Name of the Game: SILENT SONG CHARADES
How to Play: One player will MUTE THEIR SOUND and select a song. They will sing the words to the song in front of the camera, and the OTHER PLAYERS WILL HAVE TO GUESS WHAT SONG IT IS by reading the person’s lips! If no one can guess the song AFTER ONE MINUTE, THE SINGER HAS TO DRINK!
A great way to bond over music and get some singing in without having to worry about a connection delay! 🙂
“The Silly Photo Challenge”
Every round, participants will be presented with photos depicting a person in a silly situation. Each participant will try their best to recreate the goofy photograph, and in addition will put their own unique twist on it. The entire group will vote who performed the best recreation. The total round victories needed to win will depend on the size of the participating group.
The Aliens Have Landed” — Virtual Happy Hour for Teams
The rules are simple — pretend like aliens have landed on Earth and want to learn about your company and the products you provide. However, they don’t speak English, so you have to create/explain through symbols/pictures. Each participant has to draw 5 images that communicate what your company does (and its culture) as simply as possible. Include products and services as well!
These images should be as simple as possible to convey your company’s mission clearly to the aliens. Upload to a shared folder or document and pick a winner. Look at each image carefully — are there common themes within these images? Did you forget a product or service you offer as a company? Have fun with this! I did this with my team, and it really helped create an elevator pitch for our company!
I present “Just Like Van Gogh!”
Each team member draws a famous person to the best of their ability within 20 seconds. Then everyone has to guess who they drew.
Options to make the game more intense are to prepare the list of famous people ahead of time, and have people draw names. You could also make it even more specific. What’s that you say, you want a picture of Lady Gaga, but you want her in her meat dress? Or you want Oprah Winfrey but you want to see her riding in a helicopter? Each round can be progressively more intense.
At the end of the day, it will bond people through laughter and the silly challenges.
Virtual Face Lift
In this virtual team building happy hour event, each team member will be sent a care package with different beauty supplies, a scented candle + a curated single serving of wine or bubbly. The moderator will start with an ice breaker quiz to show how everyone really needs this relaxing hour. They will them walk everyone through how to give yourself an at home facial while enjoying a glass of champagne and the delicious scent of the candle. The moderator also will give you information on the wine + the candle like where and how it was made, and then set you off to enjoy the rest of your evening.
“What is that?!”
One person covers their eyes, and another picks a random object from their household (the more arbitrary the better) and holds it to the camera so everyone can see what it is except for the person who’s eyes are covered. It’s then up to the everyone to give clues to the person whose eyes are covered and help them guess what the object is. If they don’t guess it within 3 minutes they have to try again with a different person/object!
Virtual Craft Attack
The person leading the meeting has everyone pick a number between 1-50. Whoever guesses the winning number gets to pick any animal they want. Everyone gets 5 minutes to scramble around for materials in their respective homes. Now comes the fun part. Everyone is given 20 minutes to construct the chosen animal out of the materials they had handy. Winner is chosen by vote at the end !
Impromptu Portraits
Players have three minutes to draw a portrait of another player of their choosing. Bonus points if they incorporate the background! When the time is up, players will take turns showing their portraits, and the rest of the group guesses who they drew.
“Zoom Fashion Show”
Each contestant gets a chance to go into their closets and pick out the wackiest pieces they have and put them together. The uglier the outfit ends up being, the better. You can use up to 2 props from around your house. Each round, 10 minutes are allotted to find an ensemble that matches a theme. Preferably, there should be enough people for a panel of 3 judges and at least 2 contestants each round, and those roles will rotate. The person voted to have the most ghastly outfit is safe and only has to take a sip, but the person who “wins” is ordered to take a shot. A random word generator should be good for coming up with themes, so they don’t start repeating or becoming too contrived. This game gives everyone a chance to show off some individual creativity!
“Word Tennis”
You can split the group up into two teams or however many you would like. You then have one person from each team face off vs each other. Before you start, the moderator will think of a topic such as “Ice Cream Flavors”. Each person will have three seconds to think of an ice cream flavor that wasn’t mentioned previously. Players go back and forth stating ice cream flavors like a rally in tennis. If one person repeats a flavor and/or can not answer within the three seconds, then they lose the round and the other team gets the point. The next round can be “US States” then “Actors” and “Actresses”, “Types of Sports”, etc. You can go until a certain number of points of until a team dominates with a few Aces and a mean backhand (had to throw in the tennis reference)!
Name of the game “cultural knowledge”
Split the group in two teams and a letter from the alphabet is given to both teams and both teams have to write the name of a country , then a name of a state, followed by the name of a person, last name, and a thing. For example letter “F”:
France, Florida, Francine, Fernandez, flower.
Who ever finishes first decides what the other team drinks
now presenting: Karaoke Quest!
As the whole world has made a mass movement onto online resources for their day-to-day life, many have found themselves navigating a lonely home space that has reduced the interaction between friends, coworkers, and family. In order to rekindle our closeness to one another, Karaoke Quest is an excellent method of bringing together the familiarity of a beloved activity with the technological interaction of modern times. A game where two people are randomly paired to sing a well-loved song together (think past hits like Don’t You Want Me or modern favorites, like any Beyoncé, or love ballads to wave your phone flashlight to), a friendly competition will arise as the audience anonymously scores the performance. The fun environment of a karaoke room can be brought right into your home with this game!
Scavenger hunt
Name something and each person has to see if they have a picture that contains it in the picture. Builds attention to detail
How about live 3-card Tarot readings that are 10 minutes long, every Monday & Wednesday? I’d be down for that.
These are awesome ideas! How about one that lets members engage physically… for example a dancing contest. You can call out a dance style like the macrarena and best dancer wins. Or make it fun by having the members scores each other with a score card
These are all such fun ideas! Getting to know your fellow coworkers can help improve your workplace environment.
I think it could be cool to incorporate ”wellness” ideas such as healthy recipe night, or yoga.
Research and Destroy.
Split into teams. Choose something they know nothing about or very little. Each team has one hour to research, create a power point presentation or other type of media presentation over the subject. And give a 2 to 3 minute presentation over the topic. all have to be done within that hour. As best each team can. It doesn’t have to be finished. No one expects you to do all of this all at once and it be perfect. All teams vote at the end to pick a winning team. Winning team gets a work perk.
The Better ‘Guess Who’:
Take the classic ‘Guess Who’ game, but instead put the faces of different people who work in the departments across the company. This will test people’s skills on their coworkers, and maybe even foster some new friendships. This way people can know more about who they’re working with, and cue in some fun-facts to trip people up.
Jackbox Party Games!
This game is easy to livestream and play with friends and coworkers. The games allow for easy enjoyment remotely as all players use their phones to play each individual game.
Zoom Mr. Potato Head
Each employee will compete individually. Each employee will receive a blank template of an animal, person, or object…the more outlandish the better! (Blank picture of a potato, picture of a bear, outline of a body, etc.) The employee will then use a “paint” program or similar feature on their computer or the Internet to draw a costume on the template to make the picture resemble a famous person or character (i.e. Disney princess, Kim Kardashian, Joe Exotic, etc.). If an employee isn’t able to color in the picture on their computer, they can print out the template and color on it manually! The employees will then take turns guessing what person/character each other drew.
A live ‘cook off’ event
When you drink at a happy hour, you get what ?..Hungry duh.. and who doesn’t love a great meal 🙂
Have themed food event happy hours such as i.e., Mexican and Pizza, and people can cook online while sipping their favorite cocktail 🙂
It can even be timed to see who can cook the fastest and whose food is the most appetizing!
H-O-R-S-E:
Each player must have a drink on hand (non-alcoholic beverages are fine, but alcohol is encouraged for the spirit of Happy Hour).
The player who was hired MOST RECENTLY will begin the game. They can choose any “skillful” action to accomplish that must then be performed by the remaining players. Ex: 5-second handstand, a popular (or unpopular) dance move, shoot a ball of paper into a trashcan 6 feet away, etc.
You can purposefully choose actions to “motivate” co-workers such as busting out 30 push-ups or 50 jumping jacks. The choice is yours! Get creative.
Anyone who fails at accomplishing the action will be penalized with a letter (beginning with H) and will have to take a sip of their Happy Hour beverage. Players continue until they receive all letters spelling out “HORSE”.
To encourage team comradery, when a player is knocked out of the game, the group will commence a group toast in the name of the fallen co-worker.
Brainstorm is a virtual happy hour game that’s good both for loosening up veteran members of a team as well as introducing and getting a read on new members. The first player comes up with a noun, and the next players come up with descriptors for that noun, or other words that they associate with it. If a player has a particularly good descriptor or association, other players can tell them that they’ve “stolen my thunder”. If a player can’t think of a new descriptor/association in twenty seconds, they announce a “dry spell” and the last player to steal thunder has to come up with a new starter noun. The game ends when this player can’t think of a new noun in thirty seconds. An example starter noun might be “dinner”, which other players might describe as “delicious”, “nutritious” or “dinner party”, any one of which could be a “stole my thunder” suggestion, depending on the group.
My Cup of Tea
What would be better than just drinking tea? Is knowing someone their cup of tea.
The game is like this everyone would write in a small piece of paper what their cup of tea is. They can even write example such as “My cup of tea is singing before lunch” . After that fold it.
Put it in a container mix it. Everyone picks from the jumble file and guess who that person is.
While drinking their tea or beverage (they like). The more harder for you to be guess the better. A simple game while taking a break.
How well does your team eat
Each participant will state which food that everyone loves that they hate eating and why, and also food that everyone hates that they actually love.
This will give people the insight how unique their team is and to be more tactful and considerate when interacting with the team. Also, a great way to break the ice and feel comfortable with sharing ideas with the team no matter how unique their ideas are.
I’ll drink to that sounds like a great game 🙂
Who had the best week ever would be a therapeutic stress releasing game for all? Everyone share stories of a good thing that happened during the week. The BEST voted wins.
Write a short story
Everyone writes a short story one line or paragraph at a time, going around the room or in some specific order. The goal can be to make it funny or exciting or have two teams compete to make pre-made characters accomplish in the story first (e.g. a treasure hunter gets the treasure on team A or is thwarted on team B).
You could also do this in a mad libs style, fill in the blanks with noun/adjective/etc. You could also have a hat with nouns/adjectives that you pull from for each blank. You could even do it for the teams, where you pull 2 or 3 items and each team needs to choose the one they think will help their team the most.
My suggestion is the virtual version of Pictionary, Charades or Taboo. These kids classics are a sure fire way to get everyone engaged and having fun. In high school I remember getting to play Taboo in Spanish class as a treat. Without fail, this game got EVERYONE fired up and excited. Depending on the tools available, these are easy games to play virtually! Taboo games are easy to download on phones or better yet, the service can be designed and provided from Teambuilding.com. To add drinking just decide on a drinking “penalty” for mistakes. For example, if you say the ‘taboo’ word you drink 🙂 Or if your team can’t guess what you drew, you drink 🙂 But I think these games are surprisingly fun even WITHOUT alcohol!
“I’m thinking of an animal”
One person picks an animal.
Everyone else has to guess what that animal is, asking “yes” or “no” questions. For example, “IS the animal bigger than a bread box?” “Is it a mammal?”
After a round of questions, eventually the group of people work to guess what the animal is – and if it’s correct!
Guess Who?
Before the meeting, one person will send an email/text to each person requesting them to respond with one interesting fact about themselves. Gather all the responses and present them to the group at the meeting. Everyone writes down who they think that person is. Once all interesting facts have been read, go back through each one, letting the person who submitted the interesting fact claim it!
My idea is similar to the question game or the statement game but a little harder. Each person goes around the room saying something about themselves but the next person has to start their statement with the same letter that the last person ended their statement about themselves with. First person to stop the chain, drinks!
Three Famous People in 3 Seconds
Each person goes around the room and names three celebrities they would want on their work team. Each person has three seconds. If a person takes longer than three seconds, they take a drink.
Virtual Beer Pong Tournament
Virtual Beer Pong (or water pong to keep our immune systems strong!) involves a ping-pong ball strategically bounced across a table, into cups, except it’s all captured on live chat.
No bouncing allowed!
My virtual happy hour game would be called “Home Scavenger Hunt”.
How to play:
1. Create a list of common household objects.
2. Everyone has 30 seconds to gather the household items.
3. The person with the least amount of items drinks.
The Impression Game
Divide into two teams. Each team come up with five people in their social circle that everyone is familiar with. Take turns and do your best impression of that person while your team tries to guess. The team with the most correct impressions wins!
Virtual Song Trivia
Easy but fun game… Play a snippet from a song and have participants guess the artist and title. Can replay the song twice and have a minute to answer. The person with the most point wins
My suggestion is to have everyone think of a movie they like: it can be super obscure, popular, etc. Then everyone has to take a turn trying to get the other players to guess the movie by explaining the plot in the worst way they can think of. You can’t use the title, well-known lines, or character names.
The Lip-Reading Game
Take turns one person at a time turning off your mic, but leaving the video on, and saying a 5-7 word phrase. The others in the chat then have to take turns guessing what they are saying. This could be done with one person, or in teams, depending on how many people are in your virtual happy hour.
Two ways to win:
The individual or team who gets the most phrases right
-or-
The individual or team who has the funniest interpretation of what is being said
“Fast Talk”
Each member will be asked series of personal questions which will be answered in a short period of time. A member with a lot of unanswered questions will be receiving “fun punishment”.
Most Likely To…
Before the game begins, one staff member will be designated as the reader and asked to come up with a list of 10-20 “Most Likely To…” statements. Each player will need some paper and a pen.
1. The reader will read off the first statement.
2. Each staff member will write down the person they think is “Most Likely To…” do whatever the reader said.
3. On the count of three, each staff member will hold up their piece of paper. The person whose name appears the most will have to drink!
There was a game I used to play in my youth, not quite sure the name, I think the name was “Boys and Girls” because we used to play it at Boys and Girls club. There are 6 categories on the paper: boys name, girls name, animal, county/state (or city), food, and movie (or show). The game is better with 3-4 people, but can also be fun in larger groups. Player A asks player B “ABC fast or slow”, Player B says either “fast or slow” and that’s the speed player A has to say their ABC’s in the head until player B says “stop.” Once Player B says “stop” whatever letter Player A stopped on in their head is the letter with which all the players have to fill out their categories with and the first player to finish yells “stop” and everyone must stop, then recite their answers. If two people have the same answer that’s 50/100, if three or more people have the same answer then that’s 25/100. The goal is to have the highest score after a few rounds. The game can go on as long as the player would like and the letters cannot repeat. If player C lands on the same letter of player A, then Player C must do the ABC’s in their head until they get a different letter. Sounds like a lot, but the game is really fun and can get a little competitive. A simple paper and pencil game that makes you think quickly.
I love all of these! My favorite is “I’ll drink to that.” It’s certainly not because it’s totally relatable or anything…
Anyway…
Here’s one example of a game you can play during a virtual happy hour.
“Phunny Phrases”:
1. Split your group up in to groups of three people.
2. You have two people who are playing against each other, and a judge.
3. Pick 6 topics to talk about – they can be anything (climbing, boxing, movies, etc.).
4. The judge will randomly select/generate 6 weird words or phrases that are uncommon or even downright ridiculous (e.g. “fuddy-duddy”). The judge will then give these words and/or phrases to the two separate players.
5. The players will then start one of the six conversation topics and try to slip in their word or phrase without it being acknowledged by the other player. The judge will be the one to decide on legitimate callouts. If someone sneaks a word past the other player, the unknowing player will need to take a drink. If one of the players calls out the word slip correctly, the unsuccessful word-slip player needs to take a sip!
You can only use one word/phrase per topic, and if the topic passed, you lose your chance to use that word or phrase. Each topic lasts for 30 seconds – think quick!
The Sneaker Game
Tell everyone about a favorite pair of sneakers- where you got them, why you like them, and an adventure you’ve had in them.
How about this game! Everyone in the group privately messages the leader explaining a fun fact about themselves or crazy experience they had. The leader reads the fact and then the group has to try to figure out who the fact belongs to. Everyone in the group would get to learn more about each other and it would be a great (and probably hilarious!) bonding experience.
One of my favorite games to play with my friends is telephone pictionary. Really any games with interpreting drawings are amazing. The way it would work for virtual happy hour is split people up into teams with at least 3 people on one team, but the more people on a team the better. One person on each team will come up with either a word or a phrase. They will then message the next person in the team the word or phrase, which they will then draw and take a picture and send to the next person. The next person will try to figure out the phrase that was originally written by the first person. The more people on a team, the more rounds it goes through. Once all people on the team have gone, each person will then go through what part of the chain they had and share with everyone. It’s hilarious to see how they get from start to finish!
Choices, Choices
Here’s how you play: One player will draw from a pre determined list of questions along with four pre determined answers to said question. For example, the selection may read: Which activity am I most likely to do on vacation? A. Skydive B. Bungee jump C. Parasail D. Wakeboard. Silently, the player will choose their answer for themselves. They shall not reveal it to anybody. Each member of the group will then guess what the think player one selected as their answer. Following with the same example, if player one selected A. Skydive, everyone who guessed skydiving would get a point and anyone who guessed anything else would take a drink. Then another player chooses a question and so on. The winner is the first to get __ number of points. Note: the players may create their own questions with pre determined answers, however the game goes faster if the questions are already written.
The Letter Game
A random letter is given and everyone thinks of a word or anything (book, tv show, movie) that comes to mind when they think of that letter. If two or more people have the same idea then they can partner up. As more letters are given, whoever thinks of the same thing using those letters can join together and those that have different ideas have to separate (if they’re already in a group). This will reveal the people that have common ideas and people who aren’t so liked minded. Some friendships could be formed as a result or other relationships.
How about keeping that mind sharp and creating a limerick contest? Form teams and each member is only required to add one line of the limerick. Overall, each team will have an alloted time in which to create as many of them as possible. The team that creates the most limerick wins a virtual point to advance to the next challenge on Teambuilding.com
“Name the Animal” is a game to pair a person with an animal based on a good quality that person has. Is a great game to praise each other and fun to see how many animals you know.
One person draws from a bowl another person’s name (randomly), and that person needs to start saying things like: this person is like a cat, because is independent, smart, sassy, clean, and then the others need to try to guess who that person is.
This game will also help on helping the team to know their qualities better.
All about Movies
You must think of 3 movies and everyone else will have to guess the titles of the movies.
The clues to guess the movie titles are as follows:
The first movie is acted out, whatever they think will help their co-workers guess the title.
The second movie is quoted.
The third movie is the hardest as you can only use one word to describe the movie and everyone else must guess based on that one word.
Just for an extra boost of fun everyone can bring popcorn or their favorite snacks and act as if they are at the movies while guessing!
An office version of cards against humanity.
A less offensive version customized for each company.
Around the World,
This is a game I commonly play with my friends! Person A’s audio from the group would be cut out and the rest of the team can still hear themselves. The team has to decide on a something they have to apply to their answer every time Person A asks a question. The goal is for Person A to see what the commonality is between the teams answers, as they continue to ask questions.
For example:
– The member answering has to act like the person next to them
– The member answering needs to cough before they answer
– The member answering needs to start their answer with the letter ‘C’
Guess Who Show & Tell!
Option 1: Orginal!
This game is great for a group starting to get to one another. Before the Virtual Happy Hour, each person will submit a picture of an item they own that represents them to the host. The object of the game is to guess which person matches the item. When the person who matches that item has been guessed correctly that person will then share the reason the item represents them. You keep going until all items have been matched and explained.
Option 2: Guess Who Show & Tell Competitive-style!
Same as Option 1, except this time, split into teams. Each team will take turns guessing. If one team gets it wrong the next team can take a swing. Keep going until one team gets the correct answer. Once the item is matched to the person, the person explains how their item represents them. keep going until all items have been matched and explained. The team at the end of the game with the most points wins! Teams will get 1 point for each correct guess, or change it up and the winning team gets an extra vacation day!
Option 3: Guess Who Show & Tell Beverage-style!
Same as option 1, except this time, we are drinking. For every wrong answer, a guesser gives they have to take a drink. If a guesser guesses the correct person that matches the item on their 1st try then the person who the item belongs to has to take a drink. You keep going until all items have been matched, explained, and cups are empty!
The game is called “Poker Face Challenge!”
You and your team will be given a packet of jelly beans. Some of these jelly beans will be normal flavors such as fruit flavors, and others will be yucky ones such as “smelly socks, dirt, and grass.” (Yes those are real flavors of jelly beans!) The moderator / team leader will spin a wheel of colors, and whatever color it lands on, the rest of the team will need to take that corresponding jelly bean — not knowing if it tastes yummy or yucky. The main goal of this game is to try to keep a poker face for the rest of your team, so sorry to those who get smelly socks! Try your best to keep a straight face!
This is sure to be a fun game to bring your coworkers together.
Great ideas! How about a game where members bring up their Shazam history and choose a song to play for their team that reflects their personality. Each team member, without announcing their name, will play a song from their Shazam history and everyone else has to guess the song name and whose Shazam’s profile it’s coming up. To keep it fun, each member can pick the most random songs in their history. Whomever guesses right, racks up a point.
Have everyone bring 10-15 photos, either printed or cut out from magazines. They can be images of anything/anyone, as long as it is office appropriate. Break everyone up into groups (2-3 or more, depending on how many people are participating, and then have someone select a movie or tv show, or even an artist or work of art. The teams then have to use the images they have to create the best depiction they can of the chosen tv show or movie, or whatever the selected topic is.
Or, each team could create something original and the most creative or craziest image wins.
The Alphabet Challenge
While on the call, each person has to continue a sentence in the order of the alphabet.
For example, if one person says “Amazon is a very successful company,” the next person has to respond by starting a sentence with a word that begins with B: “Brilliant observation of you, that was.” (Okay, Yoda.) Then the next person to speak has to follow that sequence. Any time someone messes up, he/she gets eliminated.
The game keeps going until there’s only one person left standing.
“What’s on Your Desk?” game (adapted from “What’s in Your Purse?”): The organizer sets up a list of common and not-so-common items team members may keep on their desks (everything from “mug of cold coffee,” to “scissors,” to “lego people”). The list will be private to the organizer, who reads each item aloud and the participant will need to hold up their item to prove it’s there. A tally will be kept for bragging rights and everyone will get to know their co-workers a little better. After all, you can tell a lot about a person by how their desk looks! (Mine is full of Pop figures and vitamin supplements…)
Sculpted Gods & Goddesses:
This game is an art challenge! Each person is given 1 minutes to go and collect random items around the room they are in. They are then given 2 minutes to create an art piece from their items to make a sculpture. Tape should be on hand to assemble.
Then the team members go around and guess what each person created! The winner will be dubbed the Team’s Sculpted God or Goddess!
“What would you be” Game:
Ask questions like “What kind of tree would you be and why?”, “If you could be a mode of transportation, what would you be?”, “What aquatic animal would you be and why?”, etc. Anything interesting, quirky, or ordinary can become a what would you be question!
Each team member answers the question! It is a fun way to get to know more things about your team members and a great way to engage everyone.
I think a virtual quarantine edition of chopped with coworkers would be so fun. Where the coworkers are given 3 different cooking challenges and there are a few coworkers picked to judge the appearance/quality of the dishes – of course this would have to be based on looks/presentation alone, but I think it would be fun. Alternatively, coworkers can also film their own cooking show from their home kitchens which can be amusing. Everyone is given a challenge to cook a certain meal/food item and film themselves while doing it. I feel it would be a riot.
These ideas are so much fun. I’d like to toss out an idea…how about a virtual company gift exchange that co-workers can “swap” their prize for someone else’s by winning a challenge. The company would have gifts of things like an extra PTO day, or specialty gift cards or company-branded goodies to “steal” from your co-workers. Think a virtual “The Office Christmas Party Yankee Swap”.
A fun idea would be to play a version of Never Have I Ever in which each person prepares a statement. “Never have I ever….(insert activity here).” Then, every other person says if they have or haven’t done that activity. This could lead to some interesting stories to share with the group! The person who has the least amount of people that also haven’t done their activity wins!
One of my favorite activities to do is do a sort of “Minute-to Win It” activity. This would be hilarious for virtual gatherings.
I’m renaming this activity “Scavenging Scramble.”
The participants are divided up into groups of 4. (The group sizes can differ, but 4 is a solid number).
In each team, one person is designated to be the Record Keeper! They must collect evidence of all the completed tasks to then submit to the scorekeepers.
Each team is given a period of 30 minutes. They are provided a packet. In this packet contains a few sections:
1. Puzzles – Links to puzzles that can be completed and sent to the Record Keeper. (10 points for each puzzle completed)
2. Scavenger Hunt – List of incredibly random items participants may or may not have around their home. (3 points for each item found)
3. Funny Photos – A list of 4 oddly named inventions for participants to try to “create” from household items, drawings, or other out-the-box ideas. (scale of points based on creativity determined by judges – min of 5 points, max of 30 points)
By correctly completing the tasks in the above sections, teams are allotted points. The team with the largest number of points wins!
Two Lies and 1 Truth
Here players are asked to think of three statement about themselves; two of the statements are lies and one statement is the truth. Players takes a turn guessing the other player’s lies and one guessing the other player’s truth. Players are encourage to come up with lies that are creatively and can be truthful but hasn’t happen to them.
I think a great idea for a virtual happy hour activity would be a virtual game of Act it out but Netflix or Hulu addition! During times like these, your go to apps when you are bored are Netflix and Hulu! During this game each employee will act out their favorite actor from a recent Netflix or Hulu movie/show! This can be a great way for people to also make suggestions of the latest movie or show they have been watching! I think this will be a fun game for everyone to get involved in.
I think a great addition to this list would be Know that line. Where a song is played/or a movie line read out and the first to show up a coloured paper gets to answer. A point can be awarded for right answers. Simple and some remote fun.
Happy Hours are always made more entertaining with a game of Cards Against Humanity. This can now be played online Playingcards.io or a similar app – Evil Apples. The game can be made more happy hour friendly by not only picking the winning card, but also picking a losing card for negative points.
My idea for a virtual happy hour. Find one object in your house that says something about you. Share it and tell us how it describes you. For example, I would share a vintage blue and white tea cup. What is says about me: Blue is my favorite color. I love vintage/antique shopping; love objects with a story behind it. I love timeless aesthetics. And I enjoy a nice cup of tea in a nice tea cup!
These are all great ideas, especially the fridge showcase; I’ll take any excuse to make a snack. I think a real fun activity could be a video fashion show. Announce a theme before the call and give contestants a suitable amount of time to dress and impress. You could do anything from historical fashions, to closet cosplay, or perhaps trying to recreate a celebrity style! That’s a great way to bring out some pieces of your wardrobe, show off some individuality to your colleagues, and maybe even pick up a few fashion tips!
Have a topic to speak about and each person will speak based on who is the oldest to maintain organization during the virtual meeting. For example, if you could choose any TV or film character to be your best friend, who would it be and why?
Here is an idea: Two Truths and a Lie!
Have everyone come up with two things that are true about themselves and another thing that’s false. Then have each person present what they came up with. Everyone tries to guess the right answer, which leads to stories about past life experiences and facilitates engaging and enjoyable conversation
What about Virtual Karaoke or Charades? With Karaoke, after the song is done you have a spinner that randomly chooses the name of the next person and you have a list of songs. With Charades, you again have a spinner that will randomly choose a topic. Divide the participants into two groups and each group takes turns guessing.
I love the MTV Cribs: Fridge Edition. I was hoping now in quarantine we would get a glimpse of some people’s homes. Like an MTV Cribs Quarantine Edition.
For a virtual happy hour activity, it would be neat to do a version of Fantasy Football but for your family. My cousin and I have played this game where we go back and forth picking people, famous or not (can be a celebrity/musician/etc. or a friend), as our family member. For example, I would pick Zach Galifianakis as my brother. We both agreed it would be absolutely amazing to have Julie Andrews as our grandma. You can keep it simple or you can go on to explain why you chose that person and can go even deeper into why you chose the familial role you placed them in. So the game essentially works like Fantasy Football but you pick out who would be your parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle, brother(s), sister(s), cousins, kid(s) and even pet(s) if you’d like. You can extend the family as far as your third cousin twice removed if you want (if that even exists.) Who cares? That’s the fun of the game!
My idea for a virtual happy hour is to have a college theme night! Everyone in the group will drink a beverage (alcoholic or not) of their choice in the ever so classic red Solo cup while playing virtual typically seen drinking games that would’ve been played during college. For example, if there are 10 people on the call — there would be 5 rows on top and 5 rows at the bottom. They could virtually play flip cup to where each person flips the cup, drinks, and the next person has to go until it reaches the end of the line or ‘row’ of the virtual call. There are various other ‘college’ or classic drinking games that are known at university that can be turned virtual such as this one!
Those are all great! What about doing a virtual chili cook off? Each team member shares a their favorite chili recipe and than has to pick someone else to recreate someone else’s recipe. Once you have cooked the recipe you write what your experience was like and what you liked about the dish?
Virtual happy hour idea.
Date night with friends. family or a new love interest. Everyone will have the same ingredients to make the same dish. You can virtually walk through step by step of what you are making and how. Once dinner is ready to be served light a candle and toast to a delicious meal.
One example of an activity to make virtual happy hour more interesting is having is everyone picks a song they want to listen to in the background. Whenever a song comes on that a person picked to be on the playlist they have to go around the table or room and start up a conversation with a new person.
Pups & Pajamas! Meet during Virtual Happy Hour in Pajamas and bring your pets on screen for people to see <3
Fantasy Wars! Show up as your favorite fantasy character from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel universe or Harry Potter and be ready to engage in multi-fantasy-battle trivia!
How about a virtual guessing game where you guess-a-coworker? So split into teams, one person from each team draws a card (the cards have your team members’ names on them), and you have to describe the person on the card you draw with only three words. If your team guesses correctly, they get a point. The team with the most correct guesses wins!
Ooh, I love a good game of trivia – especially if it’s Pop Culture or Disney-related!
What about a game of Dungeons and Dragons? This could turn into a weekly Happy Hour activity which can mentally engage the participants in a topic outside of work, and will also allow the participants to be creative and let loose (as much or as little as they want).
One person would be selected as Dungeon Master, and the participants would personalize their character sheets ahead of the first call. The campaign (game) could simply be a quick one-hour adventure, or it could become a multi-week campaign, depending on how everyone felt about it. There is a website called Roll20 which acts as a virtual tabletop for D&D games, so no one would need to purchase any equipment and the video conferencing is built-in. D&D offers some escapism from the chaos in the world, and also helps foster connectedness and interpersonal skills! Plus it’s a lot of fun. 🙂
virtual happy hour icebreakers.
This will be more fun as the virtual work most of the time sitting in front of the computer for a long time. Doing 15-20 minutes icebreakers would make the work more fun and healthy (physically and mentally).
Awesome ideas! How about an activity that involves wellness? Like a 5-10 minute session of exercise that can promote movement at the beginning of each work day. Starting with basic yoga positions and ending with each person verbalizing their goals and expectations for the day.
These are great! What about adding some games? Hula Hoop contests are so much fun! Also, what about a “how well do you know your coworker” game? Everybody submits facts about themselves like their favorite food, song, movie, vacation spot, etc. If it’s a group that’s already comfortable with each other and knows each other well, you could even get more personal like describe your most embarrassing moment. Whoever can place the fact with the coworker first gets a point, and the person with the most points at the end of the game wins a prize like an iTunes or Amazon gift card.
I love dressing up and costuming (yay theatre kids!), so anything that involves being able to put on a show or dress up is great! How about themes for happy hour, it could be a color (create an outfit head to toe + accessories with one color), a book or movie series, videogames, tv show/anime you name it! It can either be decided ahead of time or If you really like a challenge it could be on the spot like charades. You spin a virtual wheel or pick a paper out of a hat and you have a limited amount of time to make your outfit and people on your team have to guess who you are if its a person/place/thing or someone is the judge and judges how good you do!
I love activities that bring a little personal life to the work life!
How about a tour of a bookshelf or music collection!
I’m always intrigued by the food at other peoples homes. What’s an item that’s always on your grocery list? (Mine is lemons!)
A cocktail, or mocktail, show and tell.
Pet Introductions! Working from home means working with our pets, right? Each of our pets has a story that everyone should know! If someone doesn’t have a pet, they can share about a pet they’ve had in the past or a pet they’d like to have in the future (mythical pets allowed).
I’m a big fan of trivia (and dream to one day compete on Jeopardy), so I’m always up for any version of that.
Another way to connect during a virtual happy hour is to have a game of Musical Bingo. I especially appreciate themed versions (think Pitch Perfect riff-off categories). It’s just like Bingo but instead of calling out numbers, the facilitator plays a clip of a song. If that’s on your board, you cross it out. First one with a line wins! For additional engagement, have the participants submit song suggestions beforehand.
I am so very into all these activities! I think one idea that could fit in these activities is including a game that doesn’t pressure people to feel like they trying too hard. Maybe something like never have I ever, but office good deed edition! Each participant must close their eyes and on their turn, must tell everyone a good deed that they always do in the office. This could include sharing snacks at the break room or things small like greeting everyone in the morning. The participants would then have to put a finger up if they do this. On the count of three everyone opens their eyes. Everyone can see the fingers up and must thank those people for what they do. Points don’t matter but you get an additional point if you volunteer to do that good deed this week. There is no winner to the game but it promotes positivity among office mates, friendship, and unity. Feel free to twist the game to pertain to your individual offices!
Wow! I am loving this list of virtual happy hour team activities/ideas! MTV Cribs: Fridge Edition, hilarious. Let’s make this a long but hopefully, not exhaustive list of ideas to share!
Here are some more:
1. If the weather allows, virtually meeting outside! There’s nothing more enjoyable than drinking in the sun (on camera)!
2. Tongue twister game, anyone? Or even a brain game to keep each other sharp! Whoever can do the most brain/tongue twister games for the longest without messing up, wins!
3. I’m all for moving around and getting some circulation going, how about some desk friendly exercises/stretches to do after each sip?
4. How fun would it be to learn to perform basic magic tricks together? The good ‘ol coin behind the ear trick is pretty fun.
5. Does anyone play any instruments? It could be a happy hour sing along with a piano, guitar, ukulele, the sky’s the limit! Maybe even a virtual talent show!
6. How does a happy hour knitting/sewing/craft making circle sound? Perhaps, a Mask Making 101 class? How to Make Your Hand Sanitizer? Origami!
7. The team could doodle, paint, or color together and show off their best work! Pjs, Paint, and Sip, anyone?
These activities are epic! I’d love to join in on any of them. An idea that could be a great happy hour activity is a show and tell. Having participants all pick an item that means something to them and share its significance can really bring a group together! Another idea is something I learned during my time as a camp counselor: brain teasers. No matter the age, people love to be stumped by a fun mind trick. Whether it’s the classic “Green Glass Door” (https://campfirehacker.com/green-glass-door/) or the lesser-known “Around the World” (https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071210192453AAe6U8a), brain teasers always get people fired up and ready to go!
How about some psychodrama activities enacting issues that come up on a daily basis and ideas to solve them.
Great ideas! I think it would be great to have some sort of virtual tutorial series like:
1. How I did that series (Hair Tutorials, Tire Change, Make up tutorials etc.)
2. Am I funny? (virtual comedy)
3. Sing Along (virtual karaoke)
These are great ideas! I think also a Great British Bake Off scenario between co-workers would be super fun, with the added hilarity of everyone doing their own British accent.
You could also do a virtual happy hour book club, or a Scattergories game.
Additionally, there could be a happy hour drink, with each co worker creating their own!
I came up with a virtual version of the “Whisper” game, but I already submitted it for a separate comment. However, I think a virtual “Hangman” is possible, too!
Name something in your background or history that no one would know!
My co-workers and I are always trying to come up with virtual happy hour ideas – there are some great ideas represented here.
One that I came up with that we all enjoy is Theme Night. Dress for the theme. Then, assign each person a ‘personality’ from that theme. If it’s a show, pick a character. If it’s a decade, pick someone famous from that time period, etc. They have to act that person all night. This is fun to just chat with, but if you throw in an online game to play together while staying in character, it’s even more fun!
I think a little friendly competition always livens up a virtual happy hour. It’s a fun way to boost engagement, and usually arises at every happy hour. Introducing Virtual Happy Hour – Guess Who
Each person can pre submit 3 interesting or fun fact about themselves. The remaining happy hourees, each have a turn to guess which person each fact belongs to. The person who guesses the most correct fact is crowned Guess Who champion.
The winner of the game receives exclusive “I know my team” bragging rights.
A great way to make icebreakers more fun !
I have seen relatives of mine doing a “show & tell” and they tell each other one negative, and one positive of working from home. It allows everyone to complain a little if they need to, but also practice gratitude and increase moral.
What about doing a virtual murder mystery party?!?
-Someone is murdered, you are given an identity (costumes and accents are greatly appreciated), you must stay in character while asking your co- workers questions to try and unfold the story and find out who the murderer is…… be warned, it could be you!
Here’s an idea:
“Guess Who” Show & Tell
This activity will require some prep-work and a team moderator. Each person on the team will select any item from their office that they feel represents them in some way. For example, if a team member is a kid at heart, he/she/they might bring a slinky or other toy (because let’s face it, a kid at heart definitely has a toy in the office!). Since this is a virtual happy hour, each person will send a photo of their selected item to the team moderator. During the virtual happy hour, the moderator will show each photo via screen share while the team guesses who the object belongs to. Once the owner of the object is revealed, he/she/they can provide an explanation of why that object represents them. A fun way to get to know your team a little better!
How about a virtual version of The Price is Right where everyone chooses objects from their house and the others have to guess retail price. Or virtual Match Game, 2 contestants and the celebrities, then a question is asked and each contestant answers. Who ever matches with the most celebrities wins.
Other idea, virtual tarot or oracle card reading or astrological chart reading if no one has any objections to that sort of thing.
These are awesome ideas! I think a studio-art contest where participants have to model a piece of art of a famous painting (for example Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh) would not only be fun but a challenge as well. It could get even more interesting if participants had the option to use non-conventional items found from drawers from home to complicate the game. The winner could receive a print from an online art website or just the option to laud over their co-workers their awesome win!
“Quarantine karaoke” A great virtual happy hour activity is a virtual karaoke with a twist. All the members would have a list of movie titles that they would randomly pick. As each member gets a turn they have to sing a song that is related to the movie title that they chose. The other members would try and guess the name of the movie. The one with the highest guesses.. WINS !
A Virtual Iron Chef where you can only cook based on what’s is stored in your Fridge
Have a one-liner joke contest. Brings about laughter!
I ‘m thinking of a relatively new activity, hope it’s something all can try: “The Mailman”
Each participant must choose a category, ie: bills, junkmail, packages, etc., spelling out each piece as one could receive, then each pick 5 pieces of mail for their mailbox, there would be an assigned group of letters (alphabetically) by the person administrating the session, if any of the mail pieces spell out a specific word or phrase from those letters, that person GOT MAIL and wins.
An idea for a virtual happy hour would be a game in which you guess films! You can narrow it down to categories such as Animated, RomCom, Action etc.. You can act out a scene, sing a song from the movie or name the actors/ location of the film etc.
These are all great ideas! I think that a game of Wikipedia Relay would be a great addition. It’s something fun and easy, and a quick stress reliever. Here’s the concept: Be the first to get from one topic on Wikipedia to another, without hitting the back button. Each player will share their screen after agreeing to a starting topic (Trees, Smart Water, Microeconomics) and to an end topic (Jellybeans, Foot massage, Bottle caps). When all players are ready you must get from Point A to Point B by clicking various links. No back button and no search bar. It’s a fun way to release some tension or a little bit of stress. And it’s fun.
Awesome ideas! Another idea I think would be fun would be to have a theme for each happy hour, where everyone needs to dress up according to whatever the happy hour’s theme is. 80’s, Disney Characters, Favorite TV show – the list is literally endless. Once everyone is on the call, each participant should explain their costume and why it relates to the theme. A winner can then be picked by everyone writing down the name of the person who’s costume they most liked on a piece of paper and holding it up to the screen!
These are all fun ideas! I think another would be playing “Name Place Animal Food Thing Total” (or scattergories) where each team member has a certain amount of time to come up with their answers based on the letter chosen (or category). Person with the most answers at the end of the game wins!
Also in large group setting where it may be problematic to have the whole team on one virtual happy hour, there could be smaller breakout rooms of favorite shows/movies, like the Harry Potter room, or the Friends room etc., and employees are given the room options before hand so that they can come to the happy hour dressed as their favorite character from chosen movie or show.
Hi Michael,
Great job, spurring excitement around the happy hour idea. I think if you could get a few recorded sessions and post them as examples to all the fun groups are having, it would be fantastic. It may also start a trend where Happy Hour Contests are rolled out with submissions of super creative happy hour video sessions.
When I was a choir teacher, what I did to make my students less shy was playing “Song Association”. I would say a word and some had to sing a song with that word in it, and when I subbed, I modified it to Titles/Phrases so that kids didn’t have to sing. It did bring a lot of kids out of their shells and it be fun to hear what everyone comes up with.
Virtual drinking games are always fun! I’ve done this a handful of times over quarantine already, some over zoom, but other times over instagram lives with friends. It’s a lot of fun and helps me feel connected to my loved ones.
These ideas look so much fun! Here’s my ideas of a perfect happy hour activities:
– Since most people are staying at home, I’m sure everyone has time to cook or even learn to. A live cooking show should do the trick! Share recipes, make everyone’s mouth water till they get convinced to cook for themselves too.
– Drinks anyone? What about we make them on the spot?
– Show-and-Tell Pet Edition is a great way to introduce our pets, who I’m sure we’re all proud of, to our co-workers, in case they come roaming around in the background while in a meeting. If you’re fostering a pet, maybe one of your workmates will be interested to become their fur-ever home. Let no one be a stranger!
– Ask everyone what they are grateful for that day. It can be as simple as having the time to have breakfast in the morning without the rush. Doesn’t have to be big. That way, your team members are able to be thankful for the smallest things they often don’t notice. It’s also a great way to promote positivity despite what’s currently happening in the world.
– Namaste! Conference yoga sessions. The best time to meditate and stretch those muscles is NOW. It helps you relax and focus on your body.
I always think including pets is fun because we can in a virtual setting! They can add a lot of laughter and comic relief.
I have a great idea for a virtual happy hour activity . A virtual talent concert , where all the participant can come up with an act of their own. The act can be anything ranging from singing to playing an instrument , dancing or a stand up comedy set. This can make more and more people to participate and who knows one might surprise their colleagues with their talent.
A great idea for a virtual happy hour would be a game of “Would You Rather” showcasing random parts and things of the participants’ homes. Each player will take turns choosing two other players to hear their “Would You Rather” suggestions then choosing their pick. Music can be playing in the background as the players confess and reminisce of the time they chosen to snuggle with the bottom of the toilet cause they were drunk.
Hey All,
During Happy Hour things should always be entertaining. If you can’t sing all the better. Makes for an entertaining Karaoke. Want to take it to the next level well let’s dress up and have a Lipsync battle with all the costume changes and performances.
Thinking of an Icebreaker/Activity how about “Swapping Names” the rule of the game are:
You can only respond to your name given during Happy Hour.
You are not able to respond to anything else.
And as Happy Hour continues it gets harder to keep everything together. As things progress people will mess up and will be out of the game. It is their responsibility to make the game more difficult.
Hope you are able to try one of this things… Let have a party you won’t forget.
Loving all these ideas! Here’s a few more:
1. For collegues that are into playing music- come up with a theme, rhythm and words for a commerical jingle or show tune.
2. Pantry appetizers- get creative with what you have in your kitchen and make a simple dish/hor d’oeuvre.
3. Exquisite corpse, virtual meeting edition! Make a drawing using your choice of medium using guides (so it can connected), screenshot the completed works and edit to see the result.
Love all of these ideas! I think it would be fun to incorporate popular game shows into virtual happy hours. For example, you could split up into teams and have someone host, and play family feud style, using a chat function instead of a buzzer to determine who answers first. Or, you could play something like the price is right, and use household items to play the segment where they guess if a price is over or under the correct price of an item.
A scavenger hunt, anyone? Let’s find something that will best describe you! Someone will request an item to be found in your home and the person to find it the quickest would have picked an item that they picked was chosen to describe their personality.
It would be amazing to consider playing blind man’s bluff, where each person writes a celebrity name on a napkin and sticks it to their forehead! To keep things interesting.
These are so much fun! New idea: Figure it Out! Before the meeting, ask everyone to come prepared with a hidden talent (or to streamline, specifically ask 3-4 people). Divide your group into 2 teams. One person at a time will act as the host, ready to reveal their hidden talent.
Step 1: come up with creative team names!
Step 2: the host will flip a coin to decide which team will go first.
Step 3: one at a time, team members will ask the host ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions about their hidden talent. For every ‘yes’ response from the host, another team member can ask another question. If the host answers ‘no,’ questions flip to the other team
Step 4: teams compete to try to guess the host’s hidden talent
Nobody guesses it? The hidden talent gets to remain a secret!
A team gets it right? The host has to perform their talent for the group!
A fun game that is a combination of the Scavenger hunts and the MTV Cribs: Fridge Edition with a bit of The Splendid Table’s Stump the Cook from NPR would be a group recipe creation challenge. If there are enough people split into small groups of three or so, with one person being the cook. The cook has will give a list of five ingredient items from their fridge and/or pantry. Water, salt, and pepper are always in the recipe, these do not count towards the five ingredients. One of the five main ingredients must be a fat of some sort. The team may use up to three additional ingredients if they are in the kitchen. Together the team must come up with a dish that they would want to eat. At the end of the challenge, the teams share their creations and swap ideas and suggestions 0n how to improve the dishes.
Last Word Song Game
Most people have a repertoire of song lyrics in their head. This activity offers the fun of recalling them, the opportunity to belt them out without anxiety about singing “well”, and the aspect of learning which songs “everyone” in the group knows and which are familiar to only you.
Goal: Encourage people to join in even if they “never sing in public” – this is about speed in thinking, and fun – not about perfect pitch.
What you need: Just people to sing.
How to play: It’s a pretty simple game. First, one player starts by singing a song. The next player has to start singing a song that starts with the last word of the previously sung song: so, if the previous player sang “I want to run to you”, then the next player has to start singing a song starting with the word “you”. And that’s the game! Keep singing songs until you can’t anymore.
One Rule: No song should be sung twice.
Here’s an idea: Inside the Actor’s Studio- Competitive Coworker Edition!
Break staff into small groups (for example, let’s say 4 people each), and each round will focus on a different group. At the start of the round, the moderator will ask one group (we’ll call them “the interview group”) a question in the style of Inside the Actor’s Studio, like “What is your least favorite word” or “What sound or noise do you love?”
Each of the 4 players in the interview group submits their answer via private chat to the moderator. The moderator then reads out all of the answers to the whole staff, and each of the other groups has to guess which answer goes with which interview group member. If the guessing teams get answers right, they get points! If none of the teams get answers right, the interview group gets points!
Groups rotate each round so all of the groups get interviewed at least once, and questions can be added beyond the Inside the Actor’s Studio questions. A fun pre-game activity would be to have staff submit their own questions!
Most of us are naturally curious and peering to see what we can see in the background of virtual meetings. For Virtual Happy Hour, use Gallery Mode and play a game of I-Spy, based on things you can see in the backdrop. For example in my backdrop – you probably spy something beginning with b – my bunny!
That’s a really fun set of Ideas!
One Id definitely adds is the compliment game. This not only boosts everyone’s self-image but can promote bonding. Go around in a list and have the first person compliment the next person and so on and so forth. Lean away from physical compliments and more ones based on actions.
These are awesome ideas. I have two for people who can not get up and walk around with their desktop: Virtual iSpy and Virtual Where’s Wlado. Just move an object to a different location daily to see if someone can find where you moved it.
TIKI TIME TUTORIALS
How about an indulgent learning experience!
Each member provides a tutorial doing their favorite thing (a craft, recipe, makeup, DIY project etc.) along with a sweet spirited drink!
Everyone participates and listens to the presenter, learning interesting step-by step instructions for various new activities while sipping on their favorite tropical-inspired cocktail. They can feel free to share cocktails recipes, or whatever they choose to teach! Each member takes turns being the presenter, educated everyone on a new skill or recreational hobby.
One idea that I have is a game where you make guests come up with their most insane/creative/disgusting/appetizing cocktail that they can using any ingredients that they find in their house.
One activity that I would love to be a part of in a virtual Happy Hour is a version of “Closet Cosplay” and can be called simply “Closet Costume Challenge.” (Points for Alliteration!)
Sometimes it can be fun to dress up, and who doesn’t love spontaneous costume contests? When competing in a “Closet Costume Challenge,” attendees will be given the name of a Famous Character, or general Character Type (for example, cowboy, 80’s rocker, etc.), or even the name of another coworker in the meeting, and be challenged to put together a spontaneous costume using only what they can find in their closest. This type of activity could be accomplished by having a few of the attendees go head-to-head against each other to see who can put together the best costume during an allotted amount of time. This activity really challenges the spontaneous creativity of a group, and it can be extremely fun to see what your coworkers can put together in just a few minutes!
Some of my favorite work-place memories have been at Halloween events where coworkers dressed as each other and acted in-character as that friend during our luncheon!
These all sound like so much fun! What about a virtual costume party happy hour? I think that would be fun, especially for recurring meetings with the same (or mostly the same) group of people. Before each get-together everyone would agree on a character theme and whoever has the most epic costume could win a prize of some kind. For example, the theme could be “famous Instagram animals” and the person in the most recognizable (I call grumpy cat, fyi) costume wins that round, for which they could be given a Starbucks gift card or something along those lines. It could be called “Happy Hour Halloween.”
I love these ideas!
My personal idea: “Who Done It?”
For this, one person will have to be the moderator of each round (the person fulfilling this role can rotate each round). The moderator, either in chat or by text, chooses one person to be “It”.
This can be a fun Happy Hour Drinking Game with any clear liquor, typically vodka or tequila. Everyone pours themselves a shot of water, except the person who is “it”. They pour themselves a shot of the liquor. Everyone takes turns taking their shot and at the end, everyone guesses who had the shot of liquor.
This can be a really fun game to test everyone’s “poker face.” I’ve done it in person and it can get some pretty funny reactions out of people.
“Employee Mafia”. In a group of employees there’s one boss that infects random employees with laziness so strong they can’t work. Find the boss before more than half of the employees are bedridden with laziness. The mafia is picked randomly. The game could possibly operate using text message from an anonymous number. Every round you vote on who you think the mafia is and the person with the most votes is out. If the boss is voted out employees win. If not, everyone closes their eyes while the mafia Boss infects a random employee via text message and when everyone opens their eyes the person who is pretending to sleep has been infected and can no longer work. And the cycle continues.
I think these are all fantastic ideas! I’d like to offer an idea where it promotes health and wellness. It would be great if everyone agreed to do a “Miles for Charity” event where your running, walking or biking can contribute to a charity of your choice. Now more than ever we should help one another stay happy and healthy. A healthy body is a healthy mind. To motivate one another, each person can come up with a daily motivational quote to help the group go after their goal for the day or week! Another idea can be a healthy potluck in which every individual can share with one another some of their favorite recipes and when everyone comes together they can share what they made with their own spices! I think this can be a fun way to promote health and wellness and contribute to a positive environment.
All fun ideas!!. How about a virtual ‘hot sauce’ challenge? There will be different ‘levels’ of heat and each one will consist of 1 drop of hot sauce on a standard chip. After eating the chip you’ll have to wait 2 minutes before moving on to the next chip. If you bow out at any point you lose. Last person standing wins. You could make a list of common and easy to find brands so everyone can get it and take it from there. Virtual karaoke is another fun idea as is a virtual talent night where people can perform anything that they want to!
These are all wonderful ideas! How about virtual guess that song? A player plays a snippet of a song and the group has to guess. F
Virtual happy hour power hour:
Pick 3-5 team member and have them send the manager/ employee in charge one of their favorite songs. During happy hour have the manager or employee in charge of happy hour play 15 seconds of each song. During this time the other employees will write down who they think the song belongs to. At the end the selected team members will reveal what song they can’t live without!
I think a virtual game of “Name That Song” would be really fun! You let each player pick their favorite song, have them send their choice to the host of the virtual happy hour to make sure no one picks the same song, then take turns playing the first 5-10 seconds of the song. It would be a great way to get each member of the group involved, as well as, gives each person a way to share more about themselves with the group.
There are so many great ideas mentioned here. One of the fun things I would like to add is play Charades – word guessing game. Playing games is fun and entertaining! Laughter is the best medicine, especially, during these unprecedented times. I would also, like to add share fun recipes.
How about a virtual game called “You Are My Destiny” that tests how much in common you have with your coworkers? Before the game begins, everyone involved will be split up into teams of two or three depending on how much people are playing. There should be one person hosting the game, and asking each team the questions. The host should have slips of paper with random numbers. Behind each number are colors, and some of the colors match back with each other. In alphabetical order, the host should ask each person playing the game to give them a number between the range of numbers that the host has written down. Once the host is done, letting everyone get a number, in numerical order, the host will show everyone the color on the back of the slip. Those who have matching colors will be on a team. There will be a total of five rounds. During each round, members will be asked to pick between two things. For example, “Cats or dogs?”. The host will give them three seconds to call out the answer. If everyone in the team’s responses are the same, they move on to the next round, if not, then they will have to start from round 1 again. Whichever team makes it to round 5 first wins. The winners can get a prize like a gift card to a restaurant or something that gives the winners a chance to get to know each other best. A lot of times, when people first work, they want to find coworkers that they may have similarities to. This game helps with that.
These all sound like great ways to stay connected to a remote working team. Another similar idea is participating in a “virtual escape room,” which is a really fun way to practice those crucial team-building skills.
I LOVE virtual bingo games! The “Host” can make random bingo cards from a generator with a theme for the night. My personal favorite is to have a group of people all watching the same show at the same time and mark their bingo cards based on the actions of the characters. This is best with a TV show rather than a movie.
You can add an extra layer of fun by having players building their own bingo cards. For example, use character catchphrases, and common things based on the show.
These ideas are so fun! One thing I do during virtual happy hours has been to host trivia nights- this can be music trivia (Spotify playlists from decades, The Oscars, your favorite genre work well) and you play 10 seconds of a song and players guess the song and get bonus points if they know the artist! you can make round of almost any category and the more funny the categories the better! (Sitcoms, Sesame Street, Random Food Facts, Funny State Laws, etc). You can really cater to the interests of your group!
Love the ideas! I think a fun and hilarious way to promote team building would be drawing your co-workers. Everyone will take turns getting their picture drawn. Utilizing a collaborative drawing tool like Aggie.io; each team member will be assigned a specific part to draw (eyes, nose, hair, etc..). All the team members (except the person being drawn) will draw at the same time. Each team member will be assigned a body part to draw at random (eyes, nose, ears, hair, etc.). Each round will last two minutes, then another team member will have their picture drawn.
Ok, loving the MTV Cribs, Murder Mystery, and other game show based ideas. I, too, was thinking it would be fun to do a virtual Jeopardy, or maybe for anyone who’s of a certain age, or a fan of the game show network, a version of Hollywood Squares?
Also a huge fan of the pet intros. ? And the hot sauce challenge! All ideas I was like “Oooo, I’m gonna suggest “x” and then, further down as I read, there was “my” idea! Oh well – great minds, right?
Another very different idea which I haven’t seen mentioned is to do a sort of Ancestry.com (or FamilySearch.org, or the like) based reveal. I am a huge history buff, and genealogy geek, and this may not appeal to everyone, but I think it could be super interesting to go around the “table” revealing our most famous, infamous, accomplished, interesting, and/or personally motivating ancestors.
Oh my! All of these ideas are so great! One that I would add that I think would be so fun is a “Name that Food” or “Name that Drink” You put blind fold over their eyes, and they have to eat or drink what they are given and try to guess what it is.
I love all of these Ideas! The Fridge idea was so clever!
I have a fun idea for a tea building activity! A Marvel Superhero Version of Clue or Mafia! Having been sent your role and if you were the killer, the one who was killed, or just an innocent by standard before the activity, everyone would have to guess by the clues given and seeing how well other’s poker face’s are, you have to guess who dun it! But Dressed as a superhero and acting as if you were them! I think it would be such a fun experience and a way to really get to know your team mates better!
I think a good virtual happy hour activity would be a murder mystery hour. A way for people to solve a case like clue or how they do it in ncis. Another thing could be an interactive escape room.
I’ve been thinking about how we could play “Who’s the Leader?” in a videoconference setting. I think it would be a fun and physical activity for a virtual happy hour! One volunteer gets put into a breakout room by themself while the rest of the team chooses a leader. The leader starts some sort of physical gesture (like tapping on their nose, turning their head side to side, raising and lowering their shoulders, etc.) that everyone else can copy on camera. The volunteer returns to the main group and watches everybody. The leader changes the gesture every 10-15 seconds while the volunteer tries to guess who’s in charge! It’s sure to get people laughing and moving.
Have you ever played LOTERIA?, Mexican family game, like BINGO, but instead of numbers we use “Mexican symbols” like sombrero, tequila, animals and different icons of Mexican Culture.
I just love it! And there are so many comments with great ideas to make our virtual happy hours and meetings so much lighter and fun especially despite everything we’re all going through during these times! I love the costume challenge idea and especially the Show & Tell- Pet Edition. I know my dog would just love to join in and show off! TikTok has been a trending subject and I think it’d be awesome if everyone could learn an existing dance or create our own! The Masked Singer is a also such a great concept and it’s so fun. It’d just be hilarious to all show up to the call with masks on and we’d have to figure out who is who!!!
There are a BUNCH of great ideas out there, and it’s great to see how creative everyone is. Personally I love the idea of “Newlyweds” style games, where you see how much team members already know about each other, and when they don’t… you get hilarious fails! If it hasn’t been suggested, team meditation is always a strong way to start off a call and allow everyone to feel more relaxed and less self-conscious before heading into the crazy. I’m also a huge fan of trivia type activities, or creative/critical thinking activities (I’m envisioning deserted island conversations, survival or camping scenarios, etc). Personally, I’m a reader. Anything that involves books instantly has my attention. One activity could be a book mash-up, where you take titles and mix them around and have team members give you the new, completely mashed-up plot in their own words. This is something I’ve done with students and team members alike! Let me tell you, things get interesting when you get books like “The Lord of Gatsby”.
Kris Kross was active in 1991 so woudln’t be fitting for a 80’s theme. Overall some great ideas here.