Corporate team building activities & events in the USA

Corporate team building in the US

Wildgoose runs hosted team building for US companies, in person, virtual or hybrid. In cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco, that’s usually a GPS scavenger hunt that starts from your office, hotel or conference venue. Indoors, short games run in the same room as your meeting, and remote teams play over a video call. Everyone plays in teams of 4 to 6 on their own phones through our app, and one of our hosts briefs the group, keeps things moving and runs the wrap-up, so you’re free to join in.

We run more than 2,000 events a year for over 70,000 participants across 23 countries. Here’s how that works for a city scavenger hunt, a big conference group, a sales kickoff and onboarding new hires.

Scavenger hunts in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, DC and Boston

A GPS scavenger hunt is the easiest way to get a big group out exploring a city together. After a short briefing, teams open the app and head out to find locations around the area. Each one unlocks trivia, puzzles and photo and video challenges, and points go up on a live leaderboard as the game goes on. Hunts last 90 minutes to two hours.

• New York City: routes around Midtown Manhattan take in Times Square, Bryant Park, Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center, and hunts can start from hotels, offices and conference centers across the city.
• Chicago: teams cover the Loop, Millennium Park, the Riverwalk and the Magnificent Mile, so it’s an easy add-on for a group that’s in town for a convention.
• San Francisco: the Embarcadero, the Ferry Building, Union Square and Chinatown are all close together, so a route packs a lot into a short walk.
• Washington, DC: routes run along the National Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Smithsonian museums and up to Capitol Hill.
• Boston: Boston Common, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market and the North End all sit on or near the Freedom Trail, and downtown’s easy to cover on foot.

We run hunts in other US cities too, and anywhere else you choose, from the streets around your office to the grounds of a venue you’ve hired.

If you’re picking a start point for 50 people or more, three things help. Choose somewhere everyone can walk to from where they’re staying or meeting. Check there’s room for the whole group to gather for the briefing. And finish where the next thing on the agenda is, so nobody has to travel twice.

Team building for a conference of 200+ people

For a conference group of 200 or more, an app-based scavenger hunt is the simplest format to scale. Everyone’s briefed together, then the group splits into teams of 4 to 6 that play on their own phones, so 200 people becomes 30 to 50 small teams. Teams choose the order they visit locations in, so they spread out across the area instead of queuing at the same spot. The live leaderboard keeps everyone in the same game, and every team’s photos and videos are ready to show at the wrap-up.

When Blue River PetCare brought 150 colleagues to downtown Chicago, they played Urban Explorer in 30 teams for 90 minutes. The hunt finished at the venue they’d booked for the evening, and the photos, videos and final scoreboard were ready to share the moment the game ended. At the Bronx Zoo, a custom version of the hunt guided guests around an event planners’ showcase, with 152 teams on the scoreboard.

If you’d rather keep everyone in the conference center, Invigorate runs for 30 or 45 minutes in the same room as your sessions, with quick-fire games and creative challenges. Our multi-city format links groups in different cities into one game, which helps when a conference has satellite offices joining in.

Sales kickoff activities

A sales kickoff’s agenda is usually packed, so the activity has to earn its slot. Three formats fit well.

• An opener before the first session. Our icebreaker games for work run for 15 to 45 minutes, online or in the room, and get people talking before the agenda starts.
• A pitch challenge. The Pitch has teams create, market and present a product under pressure, which suits a room full of people who sell for a living.
• A city hunt for the afternoon off. If the kickoff’s in a city, a GPS hunt gets the team out of the ballroom after a day of presentations. The Ultimate and Urban Explorer can both carry your own questions, so you can work in your product, your targets or the year’s big announcements.

If part of the sales team can’t travel, a hybrid event puts the people in the room and the people on the call on the same leaderboard. For more ideas, from five-minute meeting games to the kickoff itself, see our guide to team building activities for sales teams.

Onboarding new hires

A team activity in someone’s first week puts them in a small group with colleagues they haven’t met yet and gives them something to work on together, which is a lot easier than making conversation over coffee. Decide the teams ahead of time and mix new hires with people who’ve been around a while.

IBM used an outdoor hunt for its global “Welcome to IBM” onboarding event, played in New York’s Financial District, London and Sydney. The questions covered IBM’s history and values alongside each city, and free-text questions asked teams what they thought about key company topics, with the answers saved for IBM’s HR team to review afterwards.

For new hires who join remotely, virtual icebreakers like Connect and Water Cooler run over a video call in 15 to 45 minutes and are built around conversation rather than competition.

How much does corporate team building cost per person in the US?

Most of our US activities cost $15 per person, and GPS scavenger hunts cost $20 per person. A live host adds a flat fee. A Remote Host is $300 whatever the format, and an Onsite Host, who’s there in person at an in-person event, is $750 with a $2,000 minimum spend. Short games like Invigorate, Office Games, Water Cooler and Connect include the host instead, with a $300 minimum spend. Prices exclude tax.

Because the host fee doesn’t change with group size, the price per person falls as your group grows. Here’s how it adds up:

Custom questions ($250) and custom branding ($125) are optional extras on the activities that offer them. Some activities can also be self-managed, with no host fee at all. Every activity’s page shows the exact price for your team size, and you can book most of them online. If you’d like an Onsite Host, ask us when you enquire. Venue, food and travel are booked separately. For what drives the price and how to compare suppliers, see our guide to corporate team building costs.