Every year, somebody gets the job.

Figure out what we’re doing for the holiday party.

So you start looking.

Dinner. DJ. Casino night. Photo booth. Cocktail class. Live entertainment. Something interactive. Something “different.”

And after a while, you have 37 tabs open and somehow still don’t know what you want to do.

Because finding corporate holiday party ideas isn’t really the hard part.

There are plenty of ideas.

The harder question is:

What are our people actually going to enjoy?

That’s the part worth figuring out.

Give People Something to Do Besides Stand Around

Listen, I love a beautiful cocktail hour.

But there is always that stretch at the beginning of a company party when everybody is figuring out what kind of night this is going to be.

People find their work friends. Grab a drink. Look around. Talk about how nice everyone looks outside of Teams.

Give them something to do.

Not because every second of the night needs to be programmed.

It doesn’t.

But one really good interactive moment gives people somewhere to go, something to talk about and, sometimes, an excuse to interact with somebody they don’t usually see outside of a meeting.

That’s where photo and video experiences can be really good.

The right one doesn’t pull people away from the party.

It becomes part of it.

If Everybody Got Dressed, Take the Picture

This is one of those things that sounds obvious, but hear me out.

Your team spends most of the year seeing each other at work.

Then the holiday party comes around and suddenly everybody looks GOOD.

Take advantage of that.

A Holiday Portrait Studio can give guests a photograph that feels a little more special than the pictures already sitting in their camera roll.

And it doesn’t have to look like somebody opened the Christmas aisle at a craft store and used all of it.

Holiday can be subtle.

Beautiful lighting. A styled backdrop. Florals. Texture. A little shimmer. Colors that already make sense with the event.

Or go more dramatic with Holiday Spotlight and bring in rich holiday color through the lighting.

The point isn’t to make everyone look festive.

It’s to make them look good.

There’s a difference.

Give the Big Personalities Somewhere to Go

Every company has them.

The people who hear “360” and are already gathering a group before you’ve finished the sentence.

Let them have their moment.

For a holiday party with a lot of energy, movement works.

Our Roamer + 360 Experience was made for that kind of room.

Roamer moves through the party, catching people where they already are.

360 gives the people who came ready to play somewhere to go do exactly that.

You don’t have to convince everybody to participate the same way.

Which brings me to something I think matters more than people realize.

Not Everybody Has Fun the Same Way

This is where holiday party planning can go wrong.

You find one really cool idea and assume all 300 people are going to be equally excited about it.

They won’t be.

And that’s okay.

Some people will be first in line.

Some want a beautiful picture with their work bestie.

Some want to do something ridiculous with the entire department.

Some want the keepsake.

And some will spend the first hour saying they’re absolutely not taking a photo—then mysteriously appear once they’ve watched everybody else do it.

You don’t have to force the fun.

You just need to give people an easy way into it.

That’s one reason I like thinking about the experience of the whole room instead of asking, “What’s the coolest thing we can book?”

Those are two very different questions.

Give Them the “Wait, What Is That?” Thing

Every party could use one.

Something people notice someone else doing and immediately want to know about.

For one company, that might be turning the team into Naughty or Nice IDs or Santa IDs.

You can have departments, titles, personalities, inside jokes—there’s a lot we can do with the concept.

For another party, it might be Elf Yourself: Photo in Motion.

It starts with a photograph of you.

Then you move the finished piece and suddenly you’re looking at your elf alter ego.

It’s unexpected.

It’s a little ridiculous.

And that’s exactly why it works.

Not everything at a corporate event needs to be serious.

It’s the holiday party.

We’re allowed to have some fun.

Give Them Something They’ll Actually Take Home

We all have thousands of photos on our phones.

Most of them we barely look at again.

A physical photo feels different now.

Especially when you turn it into something.

A bauble that ends up on the tree.

A magnet that makes it onto the refrigerator.

A keychain that gets clipped onto a bag.

I’m not saying a keychain is going to change somebody’s life.

I’m saying there’s something nice about leaving a party with a little piece of the night in your hand.

And if people are standing around comparing what they got before they even leave?

Even better.

Make It Feel Like Your Company Threw the Party

This doesn’t mean putting the company logo on every available surface.

Please don’t.

Branding can be much more interesting than that.

Maybe we pull colors from the event design.

Maybe the print has a subtle company reference.

Maybe Naughty or Nice becomes an inside joke that only your team would understand.

Maybe a prompt comes from something that happened during the year.

Maybe the holiday styling has almost nothing traditionally “Christmas” about it because that’s not the event you’re designing.

That’s the fun part.

You can take an idea and make it specific enough that it doesn’t feel like the exact same activation could be picked up and dropped into somebody else’s holiday party the next night.

It should feel like yours.

You Don’t Need to Do Everything

This might be the most important part.

You do not need seven activations at your holiday party.

More stuff does not automatically make a better event.

Sometimes the answer is a beautiful Holiday Portrait Studio and a really good print.

Sometimes it’s Roamer + 360 because the entire point of the night is to let loose.

Sometimes it’s the Naughty or Nice IDs because your team has exactly the personality for it.

And sometimes we hear what you’re planning and recommend something you hadn’t considered.

That’s part of what we do.

The goal isn’t to fit as many experiences into the room as possible.

It’s to find the one—or the combination—that makes sense once your guests are actually in it.

Planning a Corporate Holiday Party in Washington, DC?

Start with the people.

What are they like?

What have you already done?

Is this a dressed-up night or a we are finally out of the office night?

Do you want something beautiful?

Something funny?

Something everybody can do?

Something they’ll take home?

Tell us that part first.

We’ll help with the rest.

The Phototique creates custom photo and video experiences for corporate holiday parties, company celebrations and end-of-year events throughout Washington, DC.