Last week I had the privilege of working aboard The Silver Sturgeon, one of the largest ships on the Thames. The event was for a company called Apteco who were entertaining and educating more than 200 of their partners.All aboard early at 8.00 am and there was no escape until 5.30 pm. First task was to tackle an enormous pile of lanyards adding name badges and the all important voting handsets.

Fortunately it was all hands on deck to get the lanyards sorted and last minute preparations.

The ship is luxurious and surprisingly spacious. All the guests piled on at 9.00 am for coffee and cakes and at 9.30 am the conference kicked off with the MD giving a welcoming speech. This was followed quickly on by the surprise interactive quiz with voting handsets. Now it became clear why everyone had a voting handset around their neck. Participants divided into 2 teams: “Marketing” and “Techies”

 

The interactive quiz we had prepared earlier had a nautical theme of course! Fun stuff combined with more serious questions and the teams were well away laughing and discussing every question. Every question was followed with a countdown and buzzer and nimble fingers needed to get answers in quick!

“Who took a ferry across the Mersey in the 1960’s?”

Was it:
1. The Searchers
2. Gerry & The Pacemakers
3. The Merseybeats
4. Frankie Goes to Hollywood

20 rapid minutes later the Techies emerged victorious. It was a great conference ice breaker! The conference was now in full swing and the voting handsets were used to vote on a whole series of questions, competitions and to get feedback throughout the day. Geoff Ram later stole the show with his Marketing showpiece, then a sail down the Thames with an overload of fabulous food!

For a short while I had the upper deck to myself – bliss – a great conference on a boat!

For more information about conference ice breakers, energisers, quizzes and hand held voting systems, contact us!