Have you been racking your brain for themes for your corporate event, and all you can think of sounds boring or inappropriate for a professional setting?
Your event theme will set the tone for your whole event. Once in place, it drives all of your planning decisions. The right theme attracts attendees and builds your business’s brand, but a boring or tacky theme can put your company’s reputation on the line.
At Eventbrite, we’ve helped corporate organizers overcome this exact challenge many times, and, despite what you might think, there are countless exciting and engaging themes out there — you just have to know where to look (here, for example!).
In this article, we reveal the best corporate event themes that we’ve seen captivate attendees and boost ticket sales.
Skip to your favorite corporate event themes
Creative corporate event themes
Innovative corporate event themes
“Unforgettable experiences” business event themes
Exciting corporate party themes
Creative corporate event themes
“I made so many connections at that corporate event where everything felt stiff and uncomfortable!” — said no one. Ever.
If you want to throw an event that facilitates meaningful networking, then give your attendees something to talk about by hosting an event like they’ve never seen before.
Because, let’s be honest, “Did that person just eat a sword?!” is a pretty effective icebreaker.
Here are a few ideas.
1. Hollywood
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
Host a Hollywood-themed event where security guards dress like famous movie stars from the 1950s, bartenders serve drinks in white tuxedos, and a jazz band plays smooth beats at the front of your venue. Oh, and don’t forget to offer bottles of your finest champagne.
🤯Creative twist: Take inspiration from Ermantourage Hollywood and book a rooftop bar, like Skybar, with a pool with a view. Then, turn the event into a full-glam, party-jam pool party.
2. Winter wonderland
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Rent a conference room, set up the entrance to look like a wardrobe, and transport your attendees to Narnia. To really sell the experience, decorate your event space with a lion-head ice sculpture or a witch-inspired cocktail menu with drinks like Irish hot cocoa, and serve finger foods like snowflake-shaped cookies.
🤯Creative twist: Set up interactive experiences, such as a snow machine and immersive projection displays, for guests to mingle.
3. Carnival
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Let’s be honest: All of the best event ideas involve some element of surprise and adventure. So why not dazzle your attendees with a carnival? Think outdoor venue — a park or open field — delicious food trucks, and exciting stalls, such as an adult-sized bouncy castle and a spooky pop-up haunted house.
🤯Creative twist: Host the carnival at night and turn it into a festival of the senses, like the Afro Carnival Festival did. Set up a dance floor with a live DJ, hire a horse carousel ride, and invite circus performers like flame throwers to light up the night sky.
4. Superhero
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸
Effort: 💪💪
Set up picnic tables in the style of different superhero worlds to create a memorable experience. For example, design a Gotham-City-themed picnic table with dark decorations, black tablecloths, and a Bat-Signal centerpiece. Then, add super exciting elements to the event, like live music, pop-up food vendor booths, and balloon artists.
🤯Creative twist: Organize superhero-themed scavenger hunts throughout the day and set them up as epic quests. For instance, have attendees search for all six infinity gems from the Marvel universe.
5. Games day
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪
Encourage attendees to invite their families and host a game in an outdoor stadium. Create play zones that challenge everyone’s skillset, from water balloon fight stations to ruck-sack races and fastball stalls.
🤯Creative twist: Set up cook-off stations with grills, cooktops, and fresh ingredients. Host competitions like a BBQ, bake-off, or chili cook-off, and invite attendees to join throughout the day. To make it more interesting, offer the winner a high-value prize, like a company gift voucher.
Fun business event themes
It’s hard to let your guard down and relax if you feel like you have to impress others. So we suggest going all out for a fun, engaging party that brings out everyone’s true colors and allows attendees to be themselves in an authentic and carefree way.
Here are a few of our favorite “fun-tastic” corporate party ideas.
6. Dance party
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
If you’re looking to organize a recruitment event, networking mixer, or even a team-building activity, then a dance party is a must. Book a 70s-themed venue, like a roller rink, stick a glittering mirror ball on the ceiling, fill the place with vibrant disco colors, and hire a live DJ to pump out those groovy tunes. If your venue looks like a scene from Saturday Night Fever, then you know you’ve nailed it.
🤯Creative twist: Encourage attendees to arrive dressed as their favorite music icons throughout the ages. We’re talking KISS, ABBA, or even modern artists like rapper Kendrick Lamar — whatever their heart desires.
7. Scary costume party
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Give a new meaning to the term “Sunday scaries” by using a Halloween event idea as the theme for your next corporate event. Set up your venue to look like the eerie town from ‘IT,’ with yellow balloons hanging from the ceiling, and encourage attendees to dress as creepy clowns.
🤯Creative twist: Take note from Laurel’s House of Horror, and host your event in an abandoned movie theater for a spooky atmosphere.
8. Comedy night
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
Partner with a comedy house that sells a wide variety of drinks, like Laugh City did with The Art Room, and invite local comedians to put on a show. To add more excitement, host an open mic hour where brave souls from the audience take turns telling jokes.
🤯Creative twist: Give your comedy night a theme — like The King of Comedy did. All the performers were dressed like Robert De Niro’s character, complete with a plaid suit and a red bow tie.
To make sure everyone knows about your comedy night special, you need to advertise it on several platforms. With Eventbrite, you can create ads, emails, and posts from a single place, and thanks to our integrations with your favorite marketing channels, reach millions of eventgoers worldwide.
Reach more attendees
9. Casino
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Casino nights aren’t just for high-rollers; they can also be a killer networking event. Hire roulette, poker, and blackjack gaming tables, and include a money wheel. Instead of betting with cash, use “funny money” that guests can trade in at the end of the night for prizes, like gift cards, bottles of alcohol, or exclusive merchandise.
🤯Creative twist: For each game table, offer a different signature drink. For roulette, offer a “Spin and Tonic,” for poker make “Bluff Bourbon” cocktails, and for blackjack “Jack and Coke.”
Innovative corporate event themes
Chances are that if you’re hosting a big corporate event for your company, your attendees have visited corporate events before. So how do you keep things fresh and exciting? By thinking outside the box and putting a cheeky twist on those more ‘traditional’ ideas.
Here are a few examples to give you a clear idea of what we mean.
10. Masquerade ball
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
If you want to stand out, try to recreate an enchanting atmosphere where something unexpected (and magical) happens, as Sin City Witches did with its Lunatic Ball event. Instead of elegant masks and gowns, invite attendees to arrive dressed as creatures of the night, wearing werewolf masks, blood-soaked vampire fangs, or dark fairy wings.
🤯Creative twist: Lean into the supernatural vibe and invite mystical stalls, such as palmistry and tarot card readers, to set up shop at your event.
11. Enchanted forest
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
Inject the spirit of the forest into your next corporate event by turning your venue into an enchanted world. Choose an enclosed venue, like a nightclub or a ballroom, lay sheets of soft, artificial green fur as the grass, place string lights inside oversized mushrooms to look like magical lanterns, and drape vines along the walls and ceiling to complete the transformation.
🤯Creative twist: Put a giant pond (aka a punch fountain) in the middle of your venue with ladles so guests can dunk their cups into the ‘pool of wisdom’ whenever they’re thirsty.
12. Food truck alley
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
For your next event, make food the star of the show by hosting a food truck catered party. Set up camp in a unique location, like a trade show lot, and invite local food trucks to serve their specialties. To take it up a notch, see about securing event sponsorship with local restaurants and inviting chefs to host a live cooking demonstration.
🤯Creative twist: Do what FoodieLand does and give your attendees a taste of the world with multicultural food trucks at your event.
13. Black and white gala
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
What if you turned a ballroom into a striking black-and-white, neo-noir scene? We imagine something like the 2D cafe in Florida, with hand-drawn illustrations of cityscapes and interiors. Use dramatic lighting to create shadows and depth, and encourage attendees to dress up in the style of a black-and-white thriller, like Eyes Without a Face or Psycho.
🤯Creative twist: Set up a riddle-solving game with clues inside balloons. At midnight, pop the balloons, reveal the answers, and award a prize to the person with the most correct guesses.
14. Minigolf outing
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸
Effort: 💪💪
Take inspiration from PopStroke’s Burgers, Birdies, and Brews event, and host your corporate event theme as a minigolf outing. Choose a venue with a scenic view, an 18-hole course, and plenty of space, and then plan an after-party with a grill, fresh brews on tap, and live music.
🤯Creative twist: Rather than a traditional minigolf course, find a venue that’s a playground for adults. For instance, the minigolf course at Holey Moley offers fun twists, such as a quirky mini museum art exhibit or a hole-themed like “Grandma’s Loungeroom.’”
“Unforgettable experiences” business event themes
Whether you’re planning a product launch, networking event, or team-building exercise, you want it to be memorable enough that attendees talk about it long after it’s over. Because memorable events help spread the word about your brand and build stronger bonds among attendees.
Here are some unique ideas that your audience won’t be able to resist.
15. Murder mystery game
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
There’s nothing like good old-fashioned murder to get the party vibes flowing. Add a murder mystery to your party theme for an irresistible event. For example, add a dark twist to The Wizard of Oz, where attendees must figure out their way home before the witch catches them. Whatever your murder mystery theme, present your clues in a way that includes everyone in the conversation.
🤯Creative twist: Turn your venue into a giant escape room, where attendees must solve puzzles to escape before midnight. Otherwise, they will fall prey to the vulture.
16. Christmas party
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
Bring Christmas cheer a little early this year, as Catholic Charities NY Junior Board did with its Christmas in July event. Invite “Canta” (the corporate version of Santa) to make an appearance, have your event staff dress like elves, and hang red and green streamers from the ceiling.
🤯Creative twist: Take some inspiration from our Christmas party ideas, and If you want to mix it up, use our Christmas in the Tropics party theme idea and ditch the Christmas tree for a palm tree.
17. Barbecue
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸
Effort: 💪💪
Turn a regular company party into a BBQ extravaganza by choosing a scenic outdoor venue, like a lake, and setting up picnic tables with checkered tablecloths. Serve delicious snacks, like cheese platters and refreshing frozen margaritas, while the BBQ cooks. Then, organize a friendly game of beach volleyball and set up a stage where attendees can dance barefoot to live music.
🤯Creative twist: To make the event unforgettable, set up a silent disco dance floor, carnival rides, and interactive games. For inspiration, take a look at The Silent Majority LLC’s events.
18. Awards night
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
Host your very own version of the Oscars award ceremony by rolling out the red carpet and encouraging your attendees to come dressed to the nines. Choose a black-tie venue with a stage and elegant seating, like round tables or small lounge areas, and invite a recognizable industry leader to be the MC.
🤯Creative twist: To make the event more fun, put a spin on your award categories. For instance, rather than “best directors of the year,” you can have “most creative project manager” and “best team player.”
19. Oktoberfest
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Bring your event to the streets with a vibrant Oktoberfest block party. Encourage attendees to dress up in traditional Bavarian attire, serve beer in steins, and set up stalls selling pretzels and bratwurst. Add traditional Oktoberfest activities like yodeling and folk dancing competitions.
🤯Creative twist: Include a beer-tasting station with local craft breweries and host workshops on how to brew their own beer.
Exciting corporate party themes
What if you went so far out of left field for your next corporate party that your event introduced attendees to experiences they never even knew existed?
If you like the sound of that, then you’ll love these corporate event themes.
20. Circus
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Be inspired by Las Vegas Guestlist’s Night Circus Sundays events, and replace elephants and tight-rope walkers with a modern, immersive circus experience. Choose a nightclub venue with dramatic lighting, and invite circus performances, like acrobats, to hang from the ceiling. Then, incorporate projection mapping to transform the venue’s walls and ceilings into animated circus scenes and starry night skies.
🤯Creative twist: Incorporate virtual reality stations where guests can experience being part of the circus acts, like walking a virtual tightrope or performing daring aerial stunts.
21. Mardi Gras madness
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Make freedom and self-expression the theme of your next corporate event by throwing a carnival (like the Mardi Gras bash). Rent a grand ballroom, and paint every inch in yellow, purple, and green — we’re talking walls, chairs, tables, and decorations. Then, shower your attendees in confetti to end the night on a high.
🤯Creative twist: Set up a craft station where attendees can sip on martinis while designing their very own Mardi Gras masks.
22. Outerspace
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Transport your attendees to a galaxy far, far away by taking them on a journey to the moon. Use LED and projection lighting to display the solar system onto the walls of your venue, and encourage your attendees to come dressed as aliens or astronauts.
🤯Creative twist: Do what S&S Productions does with Space Bar and collaborate with a themed venue that’s already decorated to help immerse your guests and elevate the experience.
23. Wild West
Wow factor: 🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
Find yourself a rustic barn venue, hire a mechanical bull, and order a ton of tumbleweed because, for your next event, you’re heading to the Wild West. Plan fun-themed activities, like cowboys vs. outlaws, and classic games, such as tire tosses and sack races.
🤯Creative twist: To add a personal touch to your event, create custom-made cowboy hats for each attendee.
24. Fiesta
Wow factor: 🤯
Cost: 💸💸💸
Effort: 💪💪
Choose a vibrant venue, like a circus tent or outdoor pavilion, and host a fiesta party, complete with a piñata, a taco bar where attendees can help themselves to a variety of fillings and toppings, and a pint of spicy margaritas to wash it down.
🤯Creative twist: Take a leaf out of Kombi’s book and host a Karaoke Fiesta, where attendees can sing their hearts out to their favorite songs.
25. Glamping
Wow factor: 🤯🤯🤯
Cost: 💸💸
Effort: 💪💪💪
Scout for the perfect hillside or lakeside spot with a view, set up a giant canopy area, and furnish it with plush seating, a central fire pit, and twinkling fairy lights. Give out faux fur rugs that attendees can throw over their shoulders when they get cold, and have servers go around offering tapas and hot cacao.
🤯Creative twist: Give VIP ticket holders personalized s’mores kits with gourmet chocolate and artisanal marshmallows.
Tips to help you choose the right corporate event party ideas every time
When planning your event, you want to make sure you’re clear on your event goals, as well as your budget. This will help you decide which event is right for you. For example, the cost of conferences and trade shows per attendee has risen by 3%, so make sure that this expense aligns with your goals and financial plan.
Here’s how you do it.
26. Review your goals
First, get clear on your goals. What’s the purpose of your event? Why is your company hosting it? Are you bringing together clients for a big training? Or is it your company’s annual conference to attract new prospects?
Getting the “so what” of your event down on paper will help you identify the big ideas it ties into. From there, you can start brainstorming themes that fit.
27. Consider your audience
While you might think this is an obvious one, a rough outline of who’s attending your corporate event is worth getting down long before you put together the guest list. Themes that might fly for an event where it’s just going to be your clients might not work for an event where your prospects are present, too.
A few questions to ask yourself: Who’s attending? What’s the age range? Is the event adults-only, or will families be present? Will attendees all be from the same area, or will there be people from different parts of the country or world?
28. Choose a venue that complements your theme (or vice versa)
While decorations and activities are important, subtly reinforcing your theme through your catering and venue can be even more memorable. Though traditional event venues remain the most popular choice for event planners, you’re not limited to the hotel ballroom if your event theme calls for something a little more unusual. If you’re looking to deliver a unique experience, consider exploring an unconventional venue, like a parking lot.
If you’re still having trouble selecting a theme, your venue can also provide needed inspiration. For example, if you’re hosting your event at a local winery, the location lends itself to a Tuscan theme.
If you align your venue and your theme, not only will your event feel like a breath of fresh air, you can be guaranteed it will be talked about for months to come.
Who said corporate event themes have to be boring?
Corporate events get a bad rep for being a biiiit… dull. And uninspired.
But that’s all about to change.
Why? Because you’re on the case, and now you know how to bring the fun and excitement back to corporate event themes. Whether you choose to host a carnival, casino night, or a gameday, you have what it takes to blow your attendees’ minds.
But to help ease your event stress (and guarantee event management success), we recommend partnering with Eventbrite. We’ve got the goods when it comes to staying up-to-date with your event data insights, managing event ticket registration, and even helping with social media promotion and marketing.
Sound too good to be true?
