Ice Breaking Guides for Party Planners

As an event planner or organizer, I am sure you will always looking for new and fun ways to ‘break the ice’ at parties and find the best way to get people to start mingling and chatting. There are a few things to consider when talking about ice breakers, so here are some of the tips for breaking the ice at the parties and events. Oh yes, plus a few things to consider as well when devising your ice breaker so let’s take a look at these first...

Ice Breaking Guides for Party Planners

What’s your desired outcome?

What kind of ice do you want to break? Do you want people to get to know each other, do you want people to be collaborating closely, or do you simply want people to be paying more attention to a key speaker? Knowing what your ice breaker outcome is will determine what kind of ice breaking activity you want to do. Whatever your ice breaker, you need to keep it simple. You need to warm people up and break the ice, not make everyone best friends or confuse people.

Who are you dealing with?

Are you working people who have a profession in common, who share a company that they work for, or who have a common goal, or are you breaking the ice with people who have absolutely no perceived common ground? The kind of icebreaker you use is dependent on the kind of people you’re working with, too. Alright, now that we’ve covered these items, let’s take a look at some common ice breakers.

1. Storytelling

A great way to get everyone warmed up is to engage in some storytelling. You can divide people up into groups and then get everyone to write a story together about some innovative topics. It could be related to the event that you’re running or to a random topic that is shared across the board.

2. Human bingo

This is a cute ice breaker which you can do with very little pre-planning. Prepare a bingo sheet (five-by-five or so) and fill it with various statements (have you been to more than five countries, have you worked in the same company for ten years or more etc) and then get people to interview each other and cross off certain squares until they have a ‘bingo’. This is a fun way to find out more about people and for people to find similarities with others.

3. Two truths and a lie

This is a classic ice breaker and is used successfully around the world with people at conferences, in schools and everywhere else that the ice needs to be broken! People simply compose three statements about themselves comprising two truths and lie, and then the other people in the event have to choose which one they think is the lie. It’s a fun way to find out some interesting stuff about people and a great icebreaker, obviously.

4. Hire a photo booth

I have found that a really fun and interesting way to break the ice is to have a photo booth for people to snap some photos of themselves. People love to take pictures, and you can get photo booth hire in Perth (and every other capital Australian city) that you can brand with company logos, so a photo booth is a great promotional tool as well as a fun icebreaker.

5. Guess my job

This is a fun way to learn something about people - and requires very little preparation. You simply get people to write down on a slip of paper the most interesting job they’ve ever had and then get others to guess who the slip corresponds to.

Good luck on breaking the ice at your next event.