When done well, an Event Game feature massively increases engagement and fun for attendees and drastically increases ROI. The game can be a versatile tool to drive Session attendance, foster networking, and highlight sponsors. This article offers tips for creating a game that's easy to set up and maintain, is enjoyable for attendees and sponsors alike, and helps you achieve your goals!

Do you want attendees to engage more with sponsors and exhibitors? Encourage venue and Event App exploration? Maximize social networking impact? Teach attendees something? All of these? That's great! Focus most on what you want attendees to remember and what drives the results you want to achieve.

When deciding what challenges to create, keep your goals in mind and weight points accordingly. Consider creating challenges that drive sponsor engagement, survey participation, session attendance, and other ROI-positive behaviors, such as:

When designing your game challenges, find ways to align value between attendees, sponsor, exhibitors, speakers, and your Event or Community planning team. Always make sure you reward attendees for participating in the Event App!

If sponsors and exhibitors want to meet with certain types of attendees, book meetings, or encourage social activity, then create challenges that support this. If attendees want to engage with your team or speakers, consider rewarding them for meeting up with important people.

⭐️ Keep in mind, it's important not to create "pointless" challenges as filler. Make sure every challenge code is relevant to the event, even if they're only for silly fun. The value should align for everyone who's a part of your Event App or Community.

Some events incorporate the game into their entire Event App across multiple days and fully integrate the game with the event experience. For other events, the game is a smaller component and may only take place during one day or even a few hours of the event. The game may take the form of a live or digital scavenger hunt, an exhibitor show-only game, or something structured around Sessions.

Choose what's right for your event, attendees, and support team, and make sure there are enough challenges to keep the people who are in love with the game busy. Organizers have made games with well over a hundred challenges, and attendees maxed out points and were eager for more!

Challenges worth more points should be more intensive, or the people involved should receive more value from them. Make sure that no one runs out of challenges. While we don't want you to go overboard, we recommend leaning towards more challenges than less.

Start publicizing the game (and prizes, if applicable) in marketing emails and announcements to stoke excitement.

Let attendees participate even before the event officially starts! Start by rewarding attendees for what they already do, such as checking in, downloading the Event App, or reading your marketing email. Once they start playing, they won't want to stop! Use those early challenges to get attendees familiar with the Event App, the venue, and your Sessions. When it's showtime, your attendees will have a smooth experience.

Consider adding challenges in phases each day of the event or after certain activities. This creates a cycle of excitement and anticipation that keeps the playful spirit alive.

Make sure attendees are confident in completing the challenges and empowered with all the necessary information. Write clear and simple instructions for the game and individual challenges.

For the game instructions, be sure to clearly mention prizes, limits, and goals. Create a challenge to prompt users to read the game instructions — simply put the challenge code in the instructions. 🧠 Refer to our Game Feature Guide for more information on creating game instructions.

For the challenge instructions, be sure to alleviate potential confusion by telling attendees what the challenge is and how to get the code. t's ok to have mystery codes, too. These "easter eggs" can add a level of intrigue and excitement. You won't believe how people suddenly turn into sleuths when there are mystery points to earn!

Put your leaderboard on the big screen with Live Display. Live Display is a great way to drive attendee awareness, competition, and engagement. Read our Introduction to Live Display article for more information.

Create sustainable challenges. Try to keep most challenges as maintenance-free as possible for sponsors, speakers, and staff. For example:

⭐️ Keep in mind, if you want your team, exhibitors, and other event contributors to distribute certain codes, be sure to brief them on the challenges, codes, and game so they know what to do and when to give the codes to attendees.

Rewards don't have to be expensive — a small prize can go a long way. We recommend that you consider what kind of prize your specific audience would want. The game often takes off organically, because folks love to play, and some even thrive on competition. While we've witnessed $10,000 giveaways (no, really), simply awarding recognition is also a great motivator.

⚠️ Caution! If you're using a Branded App, make sure to specify in your Game rules that Apple isn't a sponsor of or involved with the game or any related prizes or rewards.

Here are some ideas to consider for incentives:

No matter how much work went into making the game, make sure everyone attending knows about it. If the game is a big part of your Event App or Community, mention it on your event website, social media, and event emails. Mention it during the keynote and in promotional materials around your event. Post reminders on the wall and in announcements.