Icebreakers and team forming

A few ideas to help you organise activities to help your jammers get to know each other.

Being at an event surrounded by people you don't know can be intimidating at the best of times! Here are some tips and ideas of activities you could run at the start of the jam to help people get to know each other, and to get into teams.

A social / pre-party on Thursday

Have an informal social or pre party with drinks and dinner on the Thursday night (or even the Friday night!).

Forced social interaction

Before you play the keynote, get people to introduce themselves to the people to the left and right of them.

Get everyone to stand up and give their name, where they have come from and 3 words about themselves.

Randomly divide people into groups of 5 strangers. Get them to introduce themselves, and say what their favourite games are, what their expectations for the weekend are inside these small groups...

Team building exercises

• Two Truths and a Lie: A classic icebreaker where each team member shares three statements about themselves, two true and one false. The others guess the lie, encouraging light-hearted conversation and shared laughter.

• Rapid-Fire Questions: A quick and fun way to get to know each other. Ask a series of rapid-fire questions, such as "What's your favourite game?" or "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?"