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Games reinforce meeting themes, build teams
by Susan Reynolds

As Published in Toledo Business Journal

Meeting planners often hassle with taking a group off site for an evening’s entertainment. But a games company can bring the entertainment to the group. The fact that Impact Fun comes to them is a big plus for managers, said Ron Durbin, founder and CEO of the 9-year-old Perrysburg-based company. “A lot of groups use us year after year,” he said.

Companies like Kingston Health Care, for example, which has residences in Perrysburg and Sylvania. Last year at a staff training Impact Fun staged the quiz show Family Feud for them. This year they did Kingston Idol – a takeoff on the popular TV show, American Idol.

Games can create an upbeat atmosphere, build morale, rally team spirit, illustrate a point, or support an objective. There are icebreakers to loosen up strangers. Problem-solving games. Games that help employees communicate. Others that help them manage change. Team-building games can transform loosely connected individuals into a dynamic, productive team. Because many games involve participants both physically and psychologically, they work great as a seventh inning stretch, relieving boredom and re-energizing the group. And all games give managers new insight into their employees’ talents and character.

Durbin started the Perrysburg-based Impact Fun in 1996 with a 1/10-scale NASCAR game. Today he has more than 20 creative, interactive games and challenges, specializing in traffic builders, team-building games, and theme parties.

Many of the company’s games employ technology for their impact. Their 10- and 12-foot radio controlled blimps have a state-of-the-art mechanism that can rain flyers or coupons onto a trade show floor. The 24’ x 16’ banked oval racetrack for the slotless Micro-Reality stock car racing accommodates four to eight radio-controlled NASCAR replica cars. The game shows have digital scoring and a fast lockout system.

The standard game show takes 90 minutes, broken up by songs and beverage and restroom breaks. A round takes ten minutes. Turnover is key, says Durbin, getting all the employees into the process.

But he isn’t slavish even to his own routine. When Hickory Farms only had an hour to devote to a game at their Christmas party, Durbin changed the rules so that the winner was the first person to get 100 points. Fifteen rounds were played in one hour with 45 people getting a turn. “You have to be flexible,” he said.

When he first meets with a prospective client, Durbin spends time finding out what the company’s goals are. Do they want a team-building game; something that will make a cohesive force out of geographically dispersed sales people? Do they want to have a good time but also reinforce ideas presented at a training session?

One client who brought its Chicago and Indianapolis sales staff to the Maumee Bay Resort & Conference Center had Impact Fun do an icebreaker at the reception the first night. The sales reps knew of each other but didn’t know each other, said Durbin. The second night he ran a team-building game.

Impact Fun prides itself on being able to match a client’s theme – country and western, tropical, sports, Mardi Gras. A sales meeting with the theme of Racing for Success or Racing Into 2004 might offer Micro-Reality stock car racing, for example, as AAA did when it sponsored the Three Rivers Regatta in Pittsburgh. The traffic-building game was set up in the AAA tent on the riverbank where contestants “drove” the 21”-long cars – each with the AAA logo on its hood. The racetrack was customized with the logo as well.

Many of Impact Fun’s games can be sponsor-branded in that way. For companies who want a quiz show, questions can be written up in advance and scripted into the program. Corporate contestants in a quiz show game that Durbin staged recently were asked to quote their company’s mission statement. No one got it right. “That was classic,” said Durbin. “The leader of the group said, ‘I guess that’s why we’re here for training.’”

Once the word got out that Impact Fun was doing quiz shows, Durbin started to get requests for games that mimicked the popular TV reality programs. In 2004, he said, the game shows have grown light years ahead of all the rest of the games.

Impact Fun’s game show set looks like the shows TV viewers are familiar with. There’s a display of prizes (things like toasters and blenders) and pyramids of the sponsors’ products (Spam® and Rice-A-Roni® and Tide®). “We just have fun with it,” said Durbin.

I asked if employees are ever reluctant to get involved. Durbin explained that he makes a point of asking the person who booked him to point out the funniest people in the group, the liveliest. “The first round is key,” he said. If the first round goes over well, he explained, people will be lining up to put their name on the sign-up sheet.

Authors of books on team-building games advise managers to anticipate some reluctance to participate on the part of employees. They offer several suggestions to ensure success. Choose the game with an eye to both the corporate culture and the make-up of the specific group. Keep the risk low. Articulate the objectives. And debrief the group afterwards.

Cleveland-based Progressive Insurance held a two-day event at Maumee Bay in June. The 300 attendees took over the entire conference facility, according to Durbin. Meetings were cycled, with a different 30-person group scheduled for games every hour.

Impact Fun ran a cotton candy / snow cone stand, a customized Frisbee golf course, and tricycle races that were held on an inflatable obstacle course. Scores were cumulated over the two days. The second night they threw a country and western theme party with a five-hour Texas hold ‘em poker tournament as the cornerstone. Impact Fun provided not just the gaming tables and chips but the “dealers” as well. As contestants were eliminated, they went to another area where there was a cow-milking contest, a disk jockey, and line dancing lessons.

As we go to press, Dana Corporation is planning a 100th birthday party bash for August 28th at its Dorr Street headquarters. Impact Fun created a radio-controlled “action trail” for Dana of 1/10 scale SUVs that use Dana parts: Jeeps, Hummers, Ford Explorers, Nissan Titans. They also coordinated a Hole-in-One Challenge.

The Toledo Convention and Visitors Bureau is scheduled to bring in the Ohio Society of Association Executives the same week to showcase the city. Impact Fun was asked to put on two evenings of entertainment. They were to do their version of American “ Toledo” Idol at the Wyndham Hotel the first night and a Survivor party at the zoo the second night.

Game show questions, says Durbin, are about on an eighth grade level – such stumpers as Where is the Eiffel Tower? and What is New York City’s nickname? The goal is to keep it fun, not to frustrate people. Also, he said, “if there’s an open bar, that’s about as tough a question as you can ask.” If no one on the panel answers correctly, the question is opened up to the spectators. “It’s very entertaining,” he said, “not just for the contestants but for the audience.”

And not soon forgotten. Durbin says that people remember what they did three and four years later. “It’s a very memorable experience,” he said.