TEAM BUILDING IN A FRENCH CASTLE

CHALLENGE:

To plan a 2-day team building in France. An offsite event in a French historical venue or hotel within an hour and a half distance from Paris. To suggest appropriate, available venue with 1-month notice, along with fun local activities that aren’t too corporate. The objective of the event was to get the French-based employees from Europe, USA and Canada to get to know each other and work together to foster new ideas and collaboration. The challenge was not in the logistics, since the venue we secured was within an hour from their Paris office, but to bring them to a venue that broke with their usual environment. They asked for Paris in order to maintain accessibility but, at the same time, they wanted to get out of the city and the urban environment that they’re usually in.

SOLUTION:

We obtained the perfect venue that offered a practical destination for two days and coordinated the event on-site. Prelude proposed a castle outside the city to be able to relax in the middle of nature. The group traveled to the chateau in deluxe motor coaches with WiFi, arriving onto a private estate to disconnect in exclusivity. Activities and details like a bar to make your own juices or DIY cocktails encouraged everyone to feel at home.

Prelude planned the event to have meetings the first afternoon and group activities at night, karaoke and games. The following morning, we had an action team building activity to encourage the team spirit and get to know each other. The activity consisted of a spy action training. The group was divided into 4 teams that were competing to obtain a role in an action movie, including logic activities, discover a code, open a Chinese puzzle box, snipper tests or avoid being caught by a laser. Another fun activity included robots controlled by 5 controls and each control was moving a part of the robot so a team of 5 people at a time had to coordinate as fast as possible. The afternoon was followed by a meeting and free time for sports, sauna, swimming pool, hammam, Turkish bath, recreation areas, video games, board games, pool tables, table football, ping pong, bicycles, football field, volley, badminton, archery…

RESULT:

  • The venue chosen was a complete success, the client found it amazing and everyone really enjoyed themselves
  • Everything was done on a very tight schedule without feeling rushed or stressful
  • Prelude Events was able to provide high flexibility to organize the event without knowing in advance the exact number of attendees due to free participation from employees, which ended in a fully booked program