How Much Do Corporate Team-Building Events Usually Cost?

If money were no object, you’d probably be on a plane to Hawaii right now.

And if those pesky dollar signs meant nothing to you, you could easily bring your whole corporate team along with you. Because why not spring for the most exciting and memorable team-building retreat possible?

You can all have some fun on the beach, do some awesome team-building activities, forge new friendships, open stronger lines of communication, and then take all those valuable lessons and connections back to the workplace where they help your team work together more productively. In turn, this earns your company beaucoup bucks and ensures that further team-building vacations are top priority. It’s like an upward cycle of positivity, happiness, rainbows, and returns on your investment.

Even after you pop this happy fantasy bubble, the point still remains: You can’t enter this positive upward cycle without some type of initial investment.

Sadly, budgetary concerns are one of the reasons companies don’t plan team-building retreats at all, or worse, hamstring themselves by forcing everyone to meet up in the conference room for some trust falls.

It’s true, corporate team-building event prices will seem exorbitant if you think of these events as optional luxuries and forget all the value they’ll generate for your business in the future. However, if you find the right team-building partner that can deliver lasting results in the form of better workplace relationships and higher employee engagement, you’ll find that your ROI is easily worth the initial cost.

So, that begs the question: What is the actual cost of team-building workshops?

The short answer is, “it depends.” But let’s cut to the chase and give you an actually useful answer you can use to build a team-building budget.

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the prospect of budgeting and planning for a team-building event? Contact our experts at Firefly Team Events! We’re always happy to help.

Corporate Team-building Event Prices: All The Fun Without The Sticker Shock

How much should you budget for a team-building event?

Can you really put a price on new friendships?

…Kidding.

There actually is a straightforward answer here, and it’s a range from $100 to $150 per person for the event itself.

If you’re flying to Vegas (or any other fun destinations) for your company retreat, don’t forget to factor in the costs of airfare, hotels, meals, and a safety buffer in case someone boards the wrong flight and winds up in Berlin, Germany instead of Berlin, Ohio.

Whenever possible, don’t shortchange yourself. One rule of thumb is to decide your budget based on how unique and memorable of an experience you want. The more unique, the higher the per-person cost, but also the higher the return on your investment for things like team connections, positive outlooks on your company, and employee engagement.

If you’re the one in charge of discussing the team-building budget with higher-ups at your company, it can help to remind them that ROI for these activities is usually highest when you work with an experienced team-building event planning partner.

And remember, just because you allow for a certain budget doesn’t mean you have to spend it. If you come in under your original projections, you can always redirect those funds toward another goal.

Your experience will vary based on which event planning company you partner with.

Firefly Team Events can pull off a heck of a good time — and help you meet your team-building objectives — within the range we mentioned above. Larger groups can often get by with a lower rate per person. If there’s an opportunity to scale up and get a better bang for your buck, we’ll be sure to let you know during the early planning phase.

Not to sound biased or anything, but that’s a pretty great deal in the event-planning world. Some event-planning companies might offer to host your event for cheaper, but they don’t place the same emphasis on team-building that we do. So instead of getting a return on your investment in the form of happier, more engaged employees who communicate well together, you’ll essentially just pay for a fun party that likely won’t accomplish much.

The difference is that many other companies are generic event planners, not team-building event planners. At Firefly, team-building is an essential part of the package, and we’ll take extra care to help you get what you want out of the experience.

Why do you need a team-building event when you could plan a regular event instead? Most social activities at offsites — think company parties in the park or getting drinks with coworkers — can reinforce and strengthen already positive relationships, but they don’t do much toward building connections where there were none before. Worse, existing strife can ruin casual activities that don’t have a team-building focus. Would you want to spend a few hours hanging out with your sworn nemesis instead of doing something actually productive with your time? Didn’t think so. In contrast, team-building activities have the ability to connect everyone on your team, encourage new and different forms of communication, and even smooth over old rivalries and start to heal conflict.

What are the factors that affect pricing?

The largest influences on the total cost are the size, style, and scope of the event you choose.

Larger groups will cost more in total, but as we discussed, you’ll often get away with paying less per participant. Certain activities are more intensive for our staff in terms of setup, takedown, or hosting during the event itself. And some events require a lot of items we have to purchase, while others aren’t so reliant on materials.

Typically, the larger and more involved the event is, the higher the price tag will be. If we bring in specialists — such as our amazing graffiti artists — their fees factor into the total cost of the event as well.

The final piece of the puzzle is whether you’ve picked an existing event type or decided to create your own. We love it when clients come to us with unique ideas, and we’re always happy to accommodate custom requests.

We have found, however, that budget is often the deciding factor for many clients when it comes to how much they want to personalize their events. If you choose to customize an event rather than stick with one of the events on the usual menu, just understand that any increases in price are because we’ll be hard at work sourcing locations and materials and designing your dream activity.

Get your corporate team-building event off the ground with the help of Firefly Team Events.

Whether you’re feeling stuck or ready to take the next steps, we’ve got you covered. We can help with things like finding a fun destination, helping you uncover the best ways to measure the success of your event, or figuring out how to give back to your local community and foster positive connections within your team at the same time.

Basically, if you have any questions at all (preferably related to team-building, but we’re here if you just want to say hi as well), let us know what’s on your mind!

Or, skip right to the good part and…

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