Swag and souvenirs are effective tools to help engage audiences at meetings and events. Photo courtesy of Event Solutions

Tasked with creating ever-more dynamic, interactive experiences that go beyond passive presentations and traditional formats, today’s corporate and incentive meeting planners have their work cut out for them. These days, finding the next big idea that truly moves the “engagement” needle, without breaking the bank, is paramount in capturing attendees’ attention in a meaningful way.

For Craig Dooley, president at SDI Meetings & Incentives, some of the most impactful ways to engage attendees at corporate events go beyond logistics — they’re about human connection. Thoughtful listening before and during an event, and responding with intention, elevates experiences in ways that make people feel seen and valued, even within a structured itinerary.

At SDI, corporate and incentive meeting planners find that small, personal touches can make a big difference — enhancing comfort, easing anxiety, fostering interaction and minimizing distractions so participants can be fully present and engaged.

“When we get it right, events become more than just meetings; they create an environment where every attendee feels heard, supported and empowered to connect — leading to a more meaningful and productive experience,” Dooley says.

And best of all, engaging events don’t have to be expensive — but they do need to be intentional.

“We invest a lot into the activities, innovative experiences and thoughtful gifting that absolutely excite, engage and celebrate attendees, and they’re an integral part of what we do,” Dooley says. “But equally if not more important is focusing on the organization’s core values and the human elements of connection. Those elements cost mostly time and energy — an investment, yes, but not necessarily from the bank account.”

Rule No. 1: Ask Your Audience

Robyn Wetzel, president of In Focus Events, says the key to engagement is ensuring attendees feel like participants rather than an audience. Whether she and her team are designing an event for 25 people or 2,500, they want to make sure that everyone feels connected and comfortable joining the conversation.

“We endeavor to make ‘big’ seem small,” Wetzel says. “We want everyone leaning forward in their seats and actively engaged rather than sitting back with arms crossed, or even worse, on their phones. We want them to walk away having connected to leaders, peers and content/ideas. That is how we engage and energize people at our events.”

Paul Tramonte, principal event designer at Paul Tramonte Events, says it’s also important to know your audience and speak their language. If you understand what attendees want to achieve at the event, you can gear the programming to meet their goals.

“If you want further insight, ask your attendees during registration what topics they want to hear about during the event and what their number-one goal for attending … is,” Tramonte says.

For Joe Fijol, founder and principal at ETHOS Event Collective, engagement starts with intentional design, strategy and understanding the “why” behind the event and curating experiences that resonate with attendees on a deeper level.

“This approach doesn’t need to cost more. It just means it’s more thought out and personalized in the delivery,” Fijol says. “We do this by integrating interactive elements, aligning content with audience expectations and creating immersive environments that encourage participation rather than passive attendance. Sometimes, the most engaging elements are the simplest: interactive storytelling, curated networking, hands-on activities or even a well-thought-out venue layout that fosters organic conversations.”

To boost engagement, Dooley suggests:

• ‘Surprise & delight’ moments – Small, unexpected touches — like a handwritten welcome note, a personalized snack, an energizing playlist or a framed event photo delivered to their room — go a long way in making attendees feel special
• Real-time adjustments – Pay attention to energy levels and make on-the-fly tweaks, like adding a quick stretch break, moving outdoors or adjusting session formats to keep engagement high
• Personalized details – Use attendees’ preferences to create thoughtful touches, like name badges with conversation starters (hometown, fun facts) or pre-selected coffee orders to start their day

As a meeting and event planner at Event Solutions, Denise Galbraith recently applied cost-conscious measures to enhance attendee interaction for a company in Los Angeles, CA.

“They wanted to increase engagement at their internal sales meeting luncheon, so we replaced living floral centerpieces with paper flowers. The stem of each unrolled, revealing an ice-breaking question for the table,” Galbraith says. “These ‘round tables’ as they call them are a big hit with the staff, and they really enjoyed the new twist.”

Galbraith finds ways to improve engagement by listening to the client talk about their attendees. In this case, these round tables were specifically requested, and the group in question said it was hard on the table host to come up with conversation topics. So, Galbraith took an old trick and made it new, and it cost nothing.

“We’ve … increased engagement [with] gamification at many meetings,” Galbraith says. “Trivia, for example, can be done with no added budget, simply by adding slides to the presentation and using a show of hands.”

At a conference in San Francisco, CA, Galbraith needed to infuse some energy after attendees had sat through hours of presentations.

“Each member of the audience was given a set of drum sticks and were led by a drummer on stage,” Galbraith says. “This got the attendees up and moving, energizing the room and getting the blood pumping to refuel the brain. At the end of the day, it’s about being open to solutions that meet your client’s needs, within budget, and that uniquely reflect them.”

Wetzel enhances engagement in a variety of ways, and for most of her meetings and conferences that starts weeks before the event.

“We work with our clients to divide participants into small teams of people that don’t know one another or don’t typically work together. These meetups are highly choreographed and completely turnkey,” Wetzel says. “They usually start via a small group email and then progress to a brief team Zoom meetup … to meet one another, share what they are looking to accomplish at the meeting …”

Once attendees arrive, they never start in a general session but assemble in small teams to continue talking, usually for around 45 minutes.

“The energy in the main room is literally buzzing when all of the participants [arrive] in small groups of new connections …” Wetzel says.

She maintains the small-team feel throughout, creating a safe space for attendees to share their voice. Each team chooses a leader — usually a mid-level, high-potential colleague who welcomes a role that fosters connection, engagement and more visibility.

“To be clear, you do not need to spend a lot on bells, whistles and window dressing to be engaging,” Wetzel says. She adds that you also need to “do it right” so that attendees feel they are committing time to something important. That means well-planned presentations (even if they are all internal), quality AV support and enough food and drinks to help attendees stay focused.

To boost engagement, Wetzel also suggests:

• Solving real problems in real time – Engage attendees to share solutions to real challenges
• Providing well-planned Q&A sessions with leadership – Make it feel like an authentic conversation and provides access to senior leaders
• Scheduling enough down time so attendees can network and share ideas – Set aside time for attendees to interact — not check email or check out altogether
• Offering training – Wetzel sees attendees asking for a tangible takeaway, such as a skill that can help them

Tramonte stresses that it’s more about prioritizing time and funding between content sharing, interactive experiences and networking to make the biggest impact based on what’s most important to attendees, while still meeting the corporate client’s goals.

“As an event strategist and planner, it’s my job to set realistic expectations and budgets — I always have frank conversations with clients from the start to understand their goals, budget and expectations so I can help determine and share what’s possible,” Tramonte says, noting that he sees attendees asking for more free time to connect with each other.

“It doesn’t cost you more to organize your agenda to allow for that time. While the content you share is still very important, attendees no longer have the attention span for long, drawn-out sessions — quickly make your point in short sessions, spending 15 to 20 minutes per topic, and then move on,” he says.

Craving Authenticity and Purpose

Fijol says attendees today crave authenticity, purpose, meaningful connections, relevant content and experiential elements rather than just passive presentations. He suggests the following cost-effective engagement approaches:

Gamification: Simple scavenger hunts, networking bingo or trivia contests can drive interaction for free

Personalization: Using pre-event surveys and attendee research to tailor content and networking opportunities can make people feel valued

Sustainability and givebacks: Events that incorporate a CSR component — like a local nonprofit integration — enhance engagement while aligning with business goals

“The truth is that everything is on social media today. You have insider knowledge into what your VIPs like to do, drink, eat or align themselves with,” Fijol says. “Being intentional with integrating this knowledge into the details around them at a meeting away from home can make all the difference. What’s fading? Overproduced, overly scripted experiences. Attendees want less ‘talking at’ and more ‘talking with.’ Traditional panels without audience participation are losing traction in favor of more conversational formats.”

As senior director, meetings and incentives operations at CADENCE, Ashley Case has cost-effectively built engagement across a wide range of events.

“We created FOMO (fear of missing out) moments by strategically building excitement before and during the event to ensure attendees wouldn’t miss key moments,” she says. “By leveraging event marketing and buzz, we highlighted these ‘can’t miss’ moments in advance and kept the anticipation alive with reminders through event app notifications, speaker notes and digital teasers. We even wrapped columns in the event space with tempting descriptions of the lunch menu … which encouraged attendees to join the networking lunch instead of retreating to their rooms to check email.”

At another corporate event, CADENCE planners facilitated interactive peer-to-peer sessions.

“While we included impactful keynote speakers for personal and professional growth, we also made sure to carve out time for peer-to-peer and buyer-supplier brainstorming sessions,” Case says. “Some of the most positive feedback we received came from these interactive, content-driven sessions where the audience shaped the discussions and takeaways. We worked to capture these valuable insights and distributed [them] post-program, ensuring each attendee left with meaningful, actionable takeaways.”

Case and her team also incorporated surprise elements into another corporate event by intentionally designing the agenda with surprise moments to maintain high energy and engagement.

“We included fun, unexpected break opportunities like guided stretching, mini-massages, trivia corner, pet therapy/puppy corner, a photo booth, live music and a five-minute dance break,” Case says.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Corporate meeting planners must avoid some common issues with engagement initiatives. Dooley says that one key mistake to avoid is asking and then not responding — which is worse than not asking at all.

“One example, personal to me, is special meals. It’s common practice to ask attendees for dietary restrictions when they register, and that helps planners support an attendee’s needs, provide the right food and keep everyone safe,” Dooley says. “As an attendee, it’s frustrating to have provided that detail and then have options lacking onsite. Special meals can be expensive, and it’s fair to expect more than the minimum bland requirements.”

Another common mistake is overloading the schedule.

“We know from research that ‘free time’ is high among attendees’ preferences, and it doesn’t only mean leisure time. It allows for serendipity and unscripted opportunities to connect and engage in ways we cannot plan,” Dooley says. “Too much programming can make the event feel more like a chore than an opportunity for professional development. These missteps can also cost time, resources and money that don’t deliver the expected results.”

Tramonte adds that meeting content also competes with social time — as attendees who want to connect might step out of a session to do just that.

“So allocate time for it from the start, and plan for plenty of comfortable seating areas,” he says.

Attendees have also become particularly discerning about engagement activities that they may see as not beneficial.

“Expect some eye rolls if a meeting includes traditional team-building activities that feel forced or disconnected from attendees’ work,” Dooley says. “Generic or disposable swag and branded giveaways are also losing their appeal. Attendees are looking for more useful, thoughtful items that tie into the event theme and the organization’s values, and don’t end up in the garbage or in a junk drawer at home. At this point, does anyone really need another water bottle?”

Engagement Challenges

“It is imperative that leaders [and] bosses of the C-suite allow participants the time they need to attend and participate in a meeting,” Wetzel says. “The biggest challenge is when there are pop-up meetings and things that require participants to step out. It breaks their concentration and makes them feel that the meeting isn’t that important. Companies that host meetings need to do what they can to protect the time and the focus of the meeting participants so that they can get engaged and stay engaged for the duration.”

Dooley adds that today’s corporate planners are also up against technology fatigue, so balancing in-person and digital engagement is critical.

Says Fijol: “We’ve also seen expensive entertainment choices fail when they don’t resonate with the audience. Engagement isn’t about how much you spend but how well you understand what your attendees truly value … You have to ask yourself: Will your attendees get the most out of that spend, and will they remember it over other activities within the meeting?” C&IT