7 Great Online Party Activities for Your Next Amazing Virtual Event
Online parties and events can be amazingly fun, heartwarming, and memorable. Here’s how to make yours better!
- Personalize.
- Play games and activities…don’t just sit there!
- Scavenger Hunts.
- Quizzes and Rebus puzzles.
- Dance parties for everyone, and sing-a-longs for children.
- Rock, Paper, Scissors.
- Don’t forget the pictures.
Personalize.
Isn’t celebrating the guest(s) of honor the reason for throwing any kind of party? So do just that! You can decorate your space so that all of your friends will see a personalized look from your screen, but you can also send out a suggestion with your invitation: ask your friends to make up something special on their end too! Make one of the activities of the day to show off all of the artwork, and TAKE PICTURES OF THAT show and tell time! Pictures are worth a thousand “Happy Birthday” words…and your celebrants won’t forget it.
Play games and activities…don’t just sit there!
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received about running birthday parties is this: when they get bored and antsy…stand them up and run them around for a while till they get tired. Then when they get tired and their tongues are hanging out…sit them down and do something quiet for a while. Then, when they get bored and antsy…stand them up and run them around for a while till they get tired. Then when they get tired and their tongues are hanging out…sit them down and do something quiet for a while. Repeat this process throughout the whole event!
So, when you see some of your guests looking around, or checking their phones…start an activity. Then, after you’ve done something physical, or even mentally active (like quizzes and puzzles), then go back to something quieter like chatting again. I do like to add unstructured chat time between the activities…because that’s what happens in real life…people chat between activities.
Scavenger Hunts.
Send your guests running around their house collecting items! First, mute everyone so that you can explain the rules…but then send them out to get one thing at a time. For adults, offer prizes that you will mail to them later if they come back first…(and maybe have a friend keep track of who wins for you). When everyone comes back, have them show the camera what they got AND TAKE A PICTURE OF THAT. For kids, have them get a crayon, or a toy, or a character socks…things like that. For adults, the above picture was a 25th anniversary, so I sent them looking for the number 25-remember to personalize (I’m assuming that the laughing woman had a 25 on that paper somewhere), but you can send them for a roll of toilet paper, or the latest book they are reading, or even the TV remote…whatever. This is great fun, believe me.
Quizzes and Rebus puzzles.
Make up a quiz about the birthday person! It’s easy, and everyone will have fun. You can also find a zillion quizzes on the internet (celebrity, historical, funny quizzes, etc.). First mute everyone as you explain the game, and tell them that they have to raise their hands to answer…then un-mute everyone, and ask one question at a time. You pick the first hand that goes up first. There will be a lot of laughing, joking and twittering between questions. Make sure to keep track of winners if you are mailing prizes later.
Also, with a few online searches, you can find pictures of Rebus puzzles with like the two above (the answers are “Eggs over Easy” & “Once in a Blue Moon” by the way). You can share these as pictures on Zoom…and I just let whoever gets the answer to shout them out (no prizes). Practice sharing the pictures, and changing them a few times before the party. This is an excellent activity for adults, and save the hard ones for the last.
Dance parties for everyone, and sing-a-longs for children.
First…learn how to share music. On Zoom, in the sharing option, there will be an advanced sharing options button…click share computer sound only. You can then share you own music or you can share the sound from Youtube.
For adults…just mute everyone and start a dance party. Trust me, if you play Y.M.C.A. loudly…everyone will start following along (or the Chicken Dance, or the Macarena, etc.) The Beatles, “Birthday” is a great one for adult birthdays and it never fails to get people bobbing their heads and dancing. Or…at anniversaries, I play a few of their special songs, and it is perfect.
For young children (7 and under) you can find Youtube videos of every single sing-along song every made (you can also learn how to do them there as well).
For T’weens, find a few dance videos that the kids are watching (ask your child…they will tell you). Don’t play the video…just the sound from Youtube, and all the kids will start dancing along.
Rock, Paper, Scissors.
It’s hard to play this with large groups the traditional way, so I came up with this version to narrow down the field to the final two contestants.
Get pictures of each (Rock, Paper, and Scissors), then find a way to display them next to the letters A, B, & C. I made the box above with a cardboard box, my computer, a laminator (but that’s not necessary, I just happen to have one), and some Velcro strips. Any way that you can display them, on camera, will work. Then, mute everyone and explain the rules.
- You’ll mix up the pictures first, then have someone pick a letter.
- Everyone counts to three and shows their hand onscreen.
- Finally, you show the picture next to the chosen letter, and those people are out of the game.
- Then tell everyone that is out to choose someone who is left in as the person that they will be rooting for (this keeps everyone interested, and makes for a great finale’.
As you get down to the last few, you want to weed everyone out to the final pair. If you have an even number (2, 4, or 6), you can do one playoff at a time to get down to the final two (playing the regular way from now on). If you get down to 3 participants, use the rule that the when two contestants pick the same choice…those two continue on to the final. Make sure that you get the people out of the game rooting for these finalists…and then when you do the final match, live and the regular way…there will be a big crescendo of energy for the winner.
Don’t forget the pictures.
I usually take pictures and share them with each of my clients at the end of the event, but I suggest for you that you ask a friend or partner to be in charge of the pictures, that way you don’t have to try and remember that also.
Pictures keep our memories alive, and you can share them with your friends after the party in your thank you emails. If I didn’t ask for pictures from parents from my live online magic shows...I never would have received these pictures.
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