The landscape of corporate events looks very different today compared to what it did only a few years ago. We've seen a growth in demand for meaningful and intentional internal events, sometimes replacing the more traditional ones such as Christmas parties, which is where conferences come in. According to Meetings, Incentive and Travel Magazine, A total of 1.17 million conferences and meetings took place across the UK during 2025 - a growing number vs. the year before.
So where is the demand coming from?
Well, conferences are a huge catalyst for meeting organisational goals. They provide the opportunity to re-engage employees, reinforce messages and motivation, and build better cross-functional teams. January and February mark key months for kick-off conferences, which are held after a well-deserved festive period with the aim of getting the next year off to the best start possible.
What happens if you don’t engage your employees?
Although you may not consider the repercussions when you are busy in the day-to-day, failing to engage employees can lead to lower productivity, higher staff turnover, damaged workplace culture, and increased financial costs for the business.
OK, so you are sold and want to plan a kick-off conference for 2027, but how do you make it engaging so it makes the best returns for the business? Our expert conference organisers are sharing their insights and ideas to help you achieve your best conference yet.
Build Anticipation
Ramp up employee engagement for your conference early on. Ideally, you want to give your attendees as much notice as possible. Planning your conference 6 - 12 months in advance not only has cheaper venue rates and availability benefits, but it can help improve attendance rates. Ways you can build anticipation for your corporate conference include:
Get your in-house marketing team to create event communications or ask an event management agency such as Blackberry Events.
Keep sessions short and varied
When compiling your agenda, be sure to include people from across departments to ensure everyone is considered throughout the conference. Keep sessions short and varied to keep energy high in the audience.
Mix formats: keynotes, panels, workshops, breakouts.
Don’t go in with a 100-slide PowerPoint presentation and expect engagement from your employees. In 2027, delegates and employees expect more, so have a range of keynote speakers. You could include speakers from outside of your organisation, such as experts in the wider industry who can bring a new broader perspective on certain topics or even a wild card such as a comedian.
Think outside the box with your format, as the last thing anyone wants is bums on seats for 8 hours. Encourage movement and interaction to break the day up. Include collaborative workshops or mini breakout sessions tailored to specific interests, goals, or departmental requirements.
Allow for breaks long enough to connect and network. Consider the environment where refreshments are held and ask yourself whether the space has comfortable and communal seating with space to communicate with one another.
Lastly, position your most important content in the morning when energy levels are at their highest and recap the key takeaways at the end to ensure the most important messages are remembered, and action is implemented across the business afterwards.
This may be the most important step when planning an engaging kick off conference. Make your event as interactive as possible, and here are some popular ideas on how to do this:
Include apps such as Slido and Kahoot for audience interaction that is simple and easy to manage. Ask questions, conduct live polls, and give out prizes throughout the event to keep employees listening and absorbing important information.
Whilst you may be under the illusion that adding team building to your conference is difficult to manage, it is in fact the opposite. So many organisations do this to gain more returns from their conference, and as a result, event agencies are geared up to provide the right team-building activities that can be injected into the agenda without disruption or need for additional spaces at your chosen venue.
This can be achieved through tabletop team-building activities such as Escape Rooms or tablet-based games. However, if your venue space has plenty of room and you’d prefer your audience to move and do some light activity, this can also be done through indoor team-building activities such as ones that are inspired by popular TV game shows such as Traitors (although not every venue has a turret).
Add some gamification to your conference. A great way of doing this is to use an event app that allows you to input challenges that people can complete throughout the day and gain points, giving them a spot on a live leaderboard.
If you are really clever about this, you can tailor challenges to your organisation’s goals for the day. For example, if one of your aims is to improve team collaboration at the event, you can encourage them to take on team tasks or take a selfie together and upload it onto the platform. This helps break the ice for attendees, particularly if they work from home regularly.
A nice touch is to also add some of the best moments from a competition like this into the end of the day wrap up. Watch as your audience laughs and reminisces on a truly memorable day.
When you consider your agenda and speakers for your kick off conference, be sure to include storytelling from employees, not just leadership. Just like the rise in employee- and user-generated content on social media, people want to hear more from employees than owners of businesses. Your audience is more likely to find this content relatable and inspiring.
Maybe you have an employee who has overcome a challenge or has landed a huge achievement? Get them to tell their story, champion the business, and inspire others to follow suit.
Selecting the right venue for your kick-off conference is crucial to its success and the atmosphere you bring to the table.
Things to consider when choosing a venue for your conference:
Working with a professional venue finder like Blackberry Events can help massively with this, ensuring all goals are met, and logistical problems are foreseen and dealt with.
What makes an event an experience is the moments that people remember. Now, just because conferences are more formal and structured occasions doesn’t mean that you can’t create memorable moments for delegates. In fact, if you do this, your conference will likely be talked about for months, even years to come.
Recognise and reward
Include a small recognition ceremony, and spotlight members of the team or departments who have achieved great things. Be sure to thank them and reward them for their efforts. This will ensure employees leave feeling valued and therefore motivated to continue hitting goals for the business.
Have a strong opening and closing
Starting and ending your conference in a memorable way is what really sets the tone for the event and the impression it leaves after, and by this we don’t just mean a motivational speech from the CEO!
Popular ways of increasing energy at the start and end of kick off conferences are the inclusion of conference energisers. These can be an interactive performance or task which gets the audience up on their feet and laughing.
Ask about conference energisers with your event management agency.
To end your conference, why not have a balloon debate and have the audience decide who wins!
Once the event is over, don’t let all the hard work go to waste, as there’s still time to gain more value and returns post-event.
Ways you can keep the momentum going post-conference and keep employees engaged for longer include:
Doing this not only gathers useful insights and data to help you improve your next conference, but it also gives you access to employees' thoughts and feelings whilst the event and the messages are fresh in their minds.
If you take anything away from this kick off conference planning guide, don’t make these four mistakes:
Engagement is designed, not accidental. You get out what you put in. Working with an event management agency with professional conference organisers at hand can really help take the pressure off planning and implementing all of the above ideas.
It’s second nature to our experts, so save time and money by leaving it to the professionals.
For help planning your next conference, please contact us.
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