Great teams are fortified during great corporate events. Plan a high-energy, high-impact event with a corporate meeting venue in Niagara-on-the-Lake where your employees can cultivate trust, showcase their strengths and develop long-lasting, meaningful relationships with their colleagues and leadership teams. After too many Zoom meetings and long-distance collaborations, your employees will benefit significantly from the chance to reconnect with one another in person.
Team-building activities break with the typical format of a traditional meeting by getting team members moving, encouraging them to push creative boundaries and, most importantly, allowing them to experience fun and a newfound sense of freedom. What’s important when planning your corporate event is to strike a balance between enjoyment and effectiveness, so you may move towards your strategic goals while building empathy and trust.
Here are five team-building activities for your corporate event at one of our hotels that encourage creativity, ideation and excellence in big, bold and enjoyable ways.
1. Shark Tank
Strategic thinking should not be reserved for the leaders of your organization. A team building activity like Shark Tank encourages your employees to put forth their great ideas, think on their feet and communicate their perspectives in a low-risk situation. This activity is great for so many reasons. Not only will your leadership team get to hear outside-the-box solutions, but your team members will get to strut their strategy, develop confidence and get excited about showcasing their pitch.
Give your Shark Tank scenario a legitimate feel by hosting this event within one of our Vintage Hotels’ boardrooms. Equip your team members with full presentation capabilities and set up your panel to reflect the reality TV favourite.
2. Niagara-on-the-Lake Scavenger Hunt
Home to several heritage buildings, historical monuments, vast natural beauty and countless other attractions and amenities, Niagara-on-the-Lake is the perfect place for a scavenger hunt with your team. Our Vintage Hotels corporate event planners can help you build out a great scavenger hunt that will get your team members moving, thinking in unique and invigorating ways and bonding with one another over problem solving and sightseeing.
Put The Gardens at Pillar and Post to great use for your corporate scavenger hunt by placing clues throughout 22,000 square feet of Monet-inspired gardens. Then, send your team members around town to explore the rich history and natural playground of Niagara-on-the-Lake.
3. Corporate Castaways
The idea behind this team-building exercise is your team members have found yourselves in a Survivor-like scenario where they need to perform certain tasks and engage in challenges to outlast the competition. Some of the team-building activities can be all about brainstorming, others can be more physical in nature like a competitive game of volleyball, and some activities can be a combination of both.
You can customize Corporate Castaways to reflect the strategic vision of your company by incorporating themed challenges that align with the needs and opportunities you are currently grappling with. Suit up your team members with matching bandanas and host symbolic torch ceremonies to celebrate various individuals’ unique contributions to the game and its outcome. Reward the winning team with VQA bottles of wine, Vintage Hotels spa treatments or a round of Niagara golf.
4. Murder Mystery Dinner
Combine an award-winning Niagara-on-the-Lake dining experience with the inescapable delight of detective work by hosting a murder mystery event with Vintage Hotels. Our corporate event team can arrange any one of our business meeting spaces into the perfect team-building venue for this classic corporate event. Encourage your employees to wear themed costumes to really get in the mood as they travel back in time or head to faraway places to solve whichever mystery lands on their plates.
This activity is a ton of fun plus it gets people working together, inspires imaginativeness and nurtures employees’ aptitude for problem solving. While your teams get to enhance their reading comprehension and clue-finding in the best ways possible, they will also be treated to a decadent farm-to-table Niagara meal during their hotel stay that represents the very best of the region’s culinary flair.
5. Brewery, Wine & Food Tasting
Niagara-on-the-Lake has earned the title of wine country for good reason. Combine the enjoyment of sipping great glasses of wine and various local beers while learning about viticulture, agriculture and brewing. Our Vintage Hotels corporate event planning team can help you select from our long list of partner estates and arrange appropriate transportation, so everyone can safely get from their upscale hotel bookings for the corporate event to each of your chosen wineries and breweries.
Wine and food tasting is not only fantastic in terms of the great VQA flavours you will get to explore, but it can also be paired (pun intended) with different ice breaker activities and learning moments. For example, after hearing about the region’s different grapes, your team members could do a mini presentation on their favourite winery or beverage of the day. Your employees will love playing sommelier or brew master for the afternoon, as everyone gets to work on their communication skills, confidence in presenting and agile thinking.
Other Team Building Ideas
Beyond these team-building exercises, there are numerous creative ways to build camaraderie and strengthen relationships with your corporate teams. Consider organizing a trivia night where teams compete on various topics, combining fun with friendly competition. Alternatively, you may want to embrace the spontaneity of improv workshops, which encourage quick thinking and enhance communication skills while providing plenty of laughs.
For a more relaxed approach, a day at one of our spas can offer team members a chance to unwind and connect in a serene environment. Other engaging options include cooking classes to create a delicious meal, or escape room challenges for collective problem-solving. No matter what activity you choose to do, your team can build stronger bonds and enhance their collaboration skills in enjoyable and memorable ways.
Build Effective Teams by Hosting Your Corporate Event with Vintage Hotels
When you plan your corporate event with a venue that offers unparalleled flexibility and an extensive range of meeting spaces, you will not be limited in terms of what team-building exercises you can host. Vintage Hotels and our award-winning Niagara-on-the-Lake properties create the perfect atmosphere for strategic fun and powerful collaborations.
We offer various event spaces for team building and corporate events – ranging from ball rooms for hundreds of guests through to intimate breakout spaces – to suit companies of every size and activities of every persuasion. We are also proud to provide fulsome presentation technology, superior catering and thoughtful logistical support, so every member of your team feels appreciated and empowered to do their best work. From our central location for your scavenger hunt through to premium dining rooms for your murder mystery, Vintage Hotels can be your go-to for transformational corporate team building.