AllPlay at an Event: The Experient Experience.

Imagine taking the classroom audience response experience of an AllPlay game show--every single person playing along, engaged and motivated--and expanding it to a large event audience of ~250.

That's exactly what happened in the Experient event. With the cooperation of our sister company, Live Spark, we produced a customized AllPlay audience response game show that kept everyone in the audience involved, kept the energy in the event high, and reinforced crucial content.

THE CSI SMACKDOWN

The theme of the event was "CSI: Customer Strategy Investigation". The goal was to train the audience (all functionaries within the meeting industry) to be more strategic with their clients. The audience was given a case study before the event--but the key players were unsure whether they would read it and how much they would take away from it. In addition to the case study information, attendees also had to gather "clues" throughout the event. At the end of the event, teams had to present solutions to the case study utilizing the information and clues.

OBJECTIVES:
The "CSI Smackdown"--a customized AllPlay audience-response game show--was developed to:

• Reinforce key case study information.
• Reinforce and point out clues.
• Supplement a few key presentation points from the keynote speaker.
  
• Energize the audience in between sometimes-dry presentations.
• Give everyone equal footing going into the case study presentation.
• Be part of the bigger team challenge throughout the event (game show points for each team were added into their case study scores).
• Keep the audience on-the-lookout for clues (lest they miss any points in the game show!).

GAME PLAY: The audience was divided into four teams. Each member of each team had a keypad--and the percentage of correct responses taken from each person on the team went their team's total score.

The CSI Smackdown was played throughout the four day event in rounds of 2-4 questions each. This was just enough of a "touch" to reinforce information and energize the room without making the event too much about the game show.

Scores accumulated over 4 days, but the second day, points were doubled. The third--tripled, and the fourth--quadrupled. This was so that--in theory--any team had the chance to leap ahead of the pack with a well-played question. This meant that all teams maintained a stake in the game--whether they were the top scoring team, or the bottom of the bunch.

THE RESULTS: Cheering. Energy. Excitement. Buzz about the game show. A little bit of smack-talking.

After each question, the teams saw the right answer, and were taken to a scoring screen. Four columns--one representing each of the teams--started to rise in suspense in accordance with the teams' scores. (Chants of "Go Team X" or "Go Team Y" were heard.) The column of the lowest scoring team would stop. . . then the next. . . then the next. . . and then the room erupted into cheers, high-fives, and a burst of energy as the highest scoring team was revealed. It's amazing the amount of rejoicing takes place after each question. There's nothing like it at an event.

Most importantly--at the end of the game show, teams had a better understanding of the content than when they began. Everyone was on equal footing so they could present their final case studies, and everyone had a heck of a lot of fun.

As seen in this picture below. After all...does that look like a typical corporate event to you?