Year-end party games: 7 favorites from travel pros
It's year-end party season again. Are you the one organizing it, still wondering what games to play? Here are the 7 games iTour plays at every year-end party, each with how to play and tips for warming up the crowd. Just follow along.
- Red envelope draw
- Find the Heineken
- Beer-drinking contest
- Treasure hunt
- Charades
- Ultimate Password
- Costume role-play and runway
1. Red envelope draw
Usually paired with a challenge (singing on stage, showing a talent and so on). Prepare 30–50 identical red envelopes in advance and let whoever wins a chance draw blind; because the amounts differ, it's as exciting as a lucky bag. You can also go bigger: put a NT$10,000 top prize in one envelope and NT$100 in all the others. Even the quietest colleagues will pull out all the stops.
2. Find the Heineken
A year-end party classic. Fill a big ice bucket with beer and soft drinks; you drink whatever you pull out, and finishing within the time limit wins a red envelope. Advanced version: use drinks of the same color (for example green Heineken + 7UP, red Budweiser + Coca-Cola), so cheating is hard because the whole bucket looks the same. Even friends who don't usually drink have to drink this time.
3. Beer-drinking contest
For people who can hold their drink, just drinking is too easy. Make them drink through an extra-long straw; the fastest wins a red envelope. It can be one glass each, or a group drinking from one big basin. Note: mind safe distances and drink responsibly.
4. Treasure hunt
At some point in the program, add a mysterious treasure hunt. Hide items randomly under seats beforehand, and invite the lucky finders on stage to entertain everyone; you can also write specific performances on slips of paper in advance, so people perform whatever they get. It's a bit of gentle pressure, but many colleagues turn out to have hidden talents.
5. Charades
A classic with lots of variations: one person acts on stage while the audience guesses, or teams compete. Tip for warming up the crowd: have the host use prompts that resonate inside the company, like "the boss's nickname" or "a certain colleague's catchphrase", and the game gets a big boost.
6. Ultimate Password
A year-end party regular (a number-guessing game: each guess narrows the range until someone hits the secret number). You can have a few managers pick the number first, so they feel involved too. It's usually played out loud, but iTour's version is played on phones: the game runs as Q&A right in our LINE Official Account, so players know instantly whether they guessed right, a break from the traditional way.
7. Costume role-play and runway
Set a theme in advance and have colleagues walk the runway in costumes that fit it, then vote for awards like best dressed and most original. One year iTour's year-end party theme was "costumes of the world": someone dressed as Chibi Maruko-chan, someone wore a flamenco skirt; or you can set a single dress code. How good the costumes are doesn't matter; what matters is everyone going all in, and it makes a great memory.
FAQ
How many games should we prepare for a year-end party?
Usually 3–5 spread through the program is enough; too many drags out the pace. Pick 1 big-prize game (the red envelope draw), 1–2 interactive ones and 1 performance-style one.
What if employees don't like going on stage?
A random mechanism like "items hidden under seats" feels more natural than calling for volunteers; and when the prompts relate to the company, people are more willing to join in.
Can we hire someone to run the year-end party for us?
Yes. iTour often combines the year-end party with the employee trip, handling games, hosting, decoration and catering all at once.
See themed event design See corporate & employee travel
Further reading: Why companies still run employee trips ・ Old Shanghai nightclub year-end party at Yilu Hall