There’s a particular kind of silence no corporate event planner wants to hear: the deafening silence of 200 people standing around a ballroom, checking their phones, and wondering when it’s socially acceptable to leave.
Good entertainment changes the entire rhythm of an event. It gives people a reason to participate, makes it easier for coworkers who don’t normally interact to connect, and creates moments people talk about when they’re back at work Monday morning.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t necessarily need a bigger entertainment budget. You need something that fits your crowd, space, and event goals. If you’re still figuring out what your next company party, conference, awards dinner, or employee appreciation event could look like, start with these ideas.
1. AI Photo Booth
A traditional photo booth captures what your guests look like. But an AI photo booth can turn them into something entirely different.
Guests take a photo, and generative AI transforms it according to a predetermined theme or concept. That could mean futuristic portraits for a tech conference, movie-poster treatments for an awards dinner, or images customized around your company or event.
- Best For: Groups of almost any size, especially conferences, launches, holiday parties, and brand activations.
- Production Considerations: Give the booth enough room for a small line and decide how guests will receive their images. For branded events, customized outputs can make the experience feel much more connected to the occasion.
2. Silent Disco
Want a dance floor without forcing everyone to listen to the same playlist?
At a silent disco, guests wear wireless headphones and choose between different music channels. One person might be dancing to throwback hits while the coworker beside them is fully committed to EDM.
Take off the headphones, though, and the room goes hilariously quiet. Now this is a different kind of quiet. It’s a good one, because it means everyone’s having a great time.Â
- Best For: Medium and large groups with varied musical tastes.
- Production Considerations: You’ll need enough headphones for the expected crowd, multiple programmed music channels, and a system for distributing and collecting equipment. Lighting can help define the dance floor even though traditional speakers aren’t driving the experience.
3. Glambot
For an event where everyone has already dressed up, give them somewhere to show themselves off.
A Glambot uses a robotic camera to capture dramatic, slow-motion video similar to the celebrity clips you see from major red-carpet events. Guests can twirl, toast, flip their hair, strike a pose, or get an entire group involved. The resulting clips are tailormade for sharing.
- Best For: Galas, awards ceremonies, holiday parties, milestone celebrations, and upscale corporate events.
- Production Considerations: Glambot needs more room than a basic photo booth, including space for the robotic camera to operate safely. Treat it as a featured attraction rather than squeezing it into an unused corner.
4. Live Caricaturists
Sometimes analog entertainment is exactly what a technology-heavy corporate event needs.
A caricaturist gives guests something entertaining to watch while creating a personalized keepsake they can take home. Digital caricaturists can offer a more modern spin, with artwork created on a tablet and delivered electronically or printed onsite.
- Best For: Employee appreciation events, conferences, open houses, family-friendly company events, and receptions.
- Production Considerations: One artist can only draw so quickly. For larger crowds, your corporate event entertainment company may recommend multiple artists to prevent a two-hour line from becoming the evening’s main attraction.
5. Interactive Game Walls
If you want coworkers competing instead of making small talk about quarterly reports, give them a game.
Interactive game walls use lights, touch, movement, or other technology to create fast-paced challenges guests can play individually or head-to-head. They’re particularly useful when you want entertainment people can try without making a long commitment. Someone can play for a few minutes, grab a drink, mingle, and come back later.
- Best For: Team-building events, company picnics, conferences, holiday parties, and employee celebrations.
- Production Considerations: Consider how many guests can play at once and how much spectator space you’ll need. Leaderboards or tournament formats can turn a standalone game into an event-wide competition.
6. 360 Video Booth
A 360 booth puts guests right at the center of the action.
Participants stand on a platform while a camera moves around them, creating a dynamic video that can incorporate slow motion, music, graphics, or branded overlays.
It’s social by design. The people waiting often have almost as much fun watching as the person on the platform.
- Best For: Product launches, company celebrations, conferences, and high-energy networking events.
- Production Considerations: You’ll need adequate clearance around the platform for safe camera movement and a plan for digital delivery. Position it somewhere visible enough to draw interest without interrupting traffic flow.
7. Immersive AR Experiences
Augmented reality adds digital elements to the physical space around your guests.
Depending on the setup, attendees might interact with virtual objects, complete challenges, explore branded environments, or unlock content around the venue.
This works particularly well when entertainment needs to do more than fill time. AR can reinforce a product launch, conference theme, company story, or brand message while still giving attendees something fun to do.
- Best For: Conferences, trade shows, brand activations, product launches, and tech-focused events.
- Production Considerations: Strong creative development matters as much as the technology. Build the experience around what you want guests to do rather than adding AR simply because it sounds impressive.
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8. Casino Night
There’s a reason casino nights remain a corporate-event staple: guests already understand the assignment.
Blackjack, roulette, poker, and other table games give people an easy reason to gather and interact. You can use play money, chips, prizes, or a tournament format without involving actual gambling.
- Best For: Holiday parties, fundraisers, networking events, sales celebrations, and large employee events.
- Production Considerations: Match the number of tables and dealers to your guest count. Too few tables create frustrating waits; too many can make the room feel empty.
9. Live Performers Who Move Through the Crowd
Not every performance needs a stage. Magicians, mentalists, musicians, dancers, and other roaming performers can interact with smaller groups throughout cocktail hour or a reception. Guests don’t have to stop everything and watch a 45-minute show. The entertainment comes to them.
This can be especially useful at networking events where you want to spark conversations without disrupting them.
- Best For: Cocktail receptions, galas, networking events, conferences, and formal dinners.
- Production Considerations: Think about volume, lighting, room layout, and how performers will move through the crowd. Coordinate their timing with speeches, dinner service, and other programmed moments.
10. A Custom Interactive Experience
Sometimes the best entertainment idea isn’t sitting in a rental catalog.
A company anniversary could incorporate a game based on its history. A conference might use interactive technology tied to its theme. A brand activation could combine projection, games, performers, and photo experiences into one custom environment.
This is where working with a full-service production team becomes especially valuable.
- Best For: Major milestones, branded events, product launches, conferences, and events where you want something guests haven’t experienced elsewhere.
- Production Considerations: Custom experiences require more lead time. Bring your entertainment and production team into planning early enough to work through fabrication, AV, power, staffing, safety, and venue requirements.
Pick Entertainment for Your Guests, Not Your Pinterest Board
A Glambot can look incredible and still be wrong for your event. So can a casino night, silent disco, or AI photo booth.
Start with your guests. How many people are coming? Do they already know one another? Are they likely to dance? Do you want them networking, competing, creating content, or simply having fun after a long conference day?
Then look at your space and schedule. The entertainment should fit naturally into the event rather than fighting with dinner service, presentations, networking, or the bar.
Extraordinary Entertainment helps companies throughout Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia plan entertainment alongside the AV, lighting, staging, fabrication, and production elements needed to make it work. Working with one corporate event entertainment company can make it much easier to see how all those pieces fit together before event day.
Your employees probably aren’t going to spend six months counting down to the annual company party. Give them the right experience, though, and you might finally get them to stop asking whether attendance is mandatory.
