PULTEVENT
Offsite team games: 7 evening formats for a retreat after the serious part
A rented lodge in the Colorado mountains, 8:30 at night. Thirty-four people from a product team have spent the day in a converted barn arguing about the roadmap on sticky notes. Dinner is done. Somebody has pointed a portable projector at the bare log wall above the fireplace, and a laptop sits on a stack of board games nobody has opened. The head of engineering, who announced at lunch that he does not do team games, is currently steering a bowling ball down a lane on the wall with his phone and losing to an intern. He demands a rematch.
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The evening of an offsite is where the actual team building happens, whatever the agenda says about the afternoon workshop. People are tired, fed and slightly punchy after a day of hard conversations. What they need is not another structured exercise with a debrief. They need a couple of hours of shared, silly fun that nobody has to prepare for, run by someone who is not their manager.
PULTEVENT is a laptop browser console, a projector or TV, and guests playing from their own phones via QR code, with no app and no logins. Their phones need internet, which at a mountain lodge or a country house is the first thing to check. Everything else fits in a backpack.
7 formats for offsite evenings, mixed loud and quiet
1 Who wrote this
Before the offsite, everyone submits one surprising fact about themselves. On the evening, each fact appears on the wall and the team guesses from their phones who it belongs to.
How to run it. Collect the facts through a private form a week before. Ask for something colleagues would never guess.
It is the fastest way for a team that only knows each other from video calls to learn something human.
2 The day in review quiz
Eight questions about what happened in today's sessions. Who said 'let's take this offline' most, which sticky note color ran out first, how many times the projector disconnected.
How to run it. Write it during the afternoon sessions. Keep a note on your phone of every running joke.
It turns the hard parts of the day into shared jokes, which helps people come back to the table tomorrow.
3 Jargon charades
One person acts out a word from your company's vocabulary: 'synergy', 'sprint retro', 'circle back', 'the legacy system'. The screen shows the word only to the actor, their team guesses.
How to run it. Write the word list with two or three people from different teams so it covers everyone's jargon.
Watching the CTO act out 'technical debt' is worth the flight on its own.
4 Bowling tournament
Players take turns rolling from their phones, the lane is on the wall. Pairs or teams, a running score and a final.
How to run it. Pair people across departments, never with their direct manager.
It is a game where seniority means nothing and a quiet designer can humiliate a VP.
5 Task randomizer
Tap and the randomizer lands on a small task for a random person: tell the story of your worst job interview, do your best impression of the office coffee machine, name three songs from your first concert.
How to run it. Write the tasks yourself and keep them kind. Always allow a skip.
It gets stories out of people that would never come up in a meeting.
6 Fake karaoke
A volunteer sings along to a backing track. The program quietly records the voice, then plays it back without the music. The room loses it.
How to run it. Only pick someone with a thick skin who has already volunteered for something that evening.
The best stories from offsites are always the least planned. This one comes close.
7 Offsite awards
The team votes from their phones in silly categories: best sticky-note handwriting, most likely to say 'quick question', best snorer. Then the podium with confetti on the wall.
How to run it. Collect the categories from the team during the day; the best ones come from them.
It ends the retreat on a laugh, which is how people will describe the whole offsite on Monday.
Packs into a backpack
Laptop, portable projector or the lodge TV, an HDMI cable and a speaker.
No prep from the team
People just scan and play. The organizer does the setup once.
Built for tired people
Short rounds, simple controls, lots of laughing at each other.
Evening one and evening two
Enough formats to run two different nights without repeating a game.
The first night and the second night are different
On the first evening people are still cautious. Pick formats that ask little and reveal a bit: the facts round, charades, a quiz. By the second night they know each other better and will happily go competitive or ridiculous. That is when bowling and fake karaoke work.
If the offsite is one night only, pick four formats and stop while people still want more.
Internet at a remote lodge
Retreat venues are often chosen because they are far from everything, and the Wi-Fi reflects it. Ask the owner for the actual speed, not whether Wi-Fi exists, and check your phone's mobile signal in the room where you will play. Phone games need internet on every phone.
If the connection is too weak, the rounds that run from the laptop alone still work: charades, the randomizer, and a photo round with people shouting answers. Nobody will be disappointed. They will just be louder.
Not everyone wants to stay up
Some people go to bed at nine. Some people do not drink. Some people have been in a room with twenty colleagues since eight in the morning and need to be alone. Make the evening clearly optional, start it at a fixed time, and design it so people can join or leave between rounds without it being awkward.
The manager should not host
If you are the team lead, hand the laptop to someone else. The evening works when the hierarchy softens, and that is harder when the person with the clicker also writes the performance reviews. A project coordinator, an office manager or the most sociable engineer will do it better.
"Can I at least play?"
"You can lose at bowling like everyone else."
What to pack
Laptop and charger. A portable projector, or a long HDMI cable if the lodge has a TV. A wireless or wired speaker, because laptop speakers disappear in a room with a fire going. A power strip. Write the quiz and the charades list before you travel, and load the facts from the form into the console at home.
Test it before the trip
The free 3-day demo, with no card, is enough to set up both evenings and run a practice round with a few colleagues on the office TV. If you keep it, you buy a one-time licence and skip the subscription entirely. The price is listed at pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run team games on an offsite evening
- 1
A week before, collect surprising facts from everyone through a private form.
- 2
Ask the venue about the Wi-Fi speed and whether there is a TV with a free HDMI port.
- 3
Build the facts round, the charades list and the awards categories, and pack the kit.
- 4
During the day, note running jokes and write the day-in-review quiz.
- 5
After dinner, set up the screen and speaker and put the QR code up.
- 6
Play four or five rounds, finish with the awards, and let people drift off when they want.
FAQ
How many people is this good for?
Do we need a projector?
What if the lodge has no internet?
Is it suitable for people who do not drink?
Can we use it for the daytime sessions too?
Do the built-in quizzes work in English?
What is the cost?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
All audience interactions, a second screen and timing in one app. Guests join by QR — internet is needed for you and for them.
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