You found our list of the best hybrid Halloween activities.
Hybrid Halloween activities are Halloween events for workplaces that are a combination of in-person and remote teams. For example, scavenger hunts or costume contests. The purpose of this type of programming is to engage all attendees while still being accessible to telecommuting team members.
These exercises are examples of hybrid team building activities, Halloween games, and Halloween team building activities, and are similar to virtual Halloween party ideas.
This article includes:
- hybrid Halloween activities
- hybrid Halloween games
- hybrid Halloween ideas
Here we go!
List of hybrid Halloween ideas
Here is a list of Halloween team building activities for hybrid teams that is sure to send shivers of delight down attendees’ spines.
1. Ultimate Halloween Game Show
Ultimate Halloween Game Show is a virtual team building experience that is also easily playable with hybrid groups.
The highlights:
- 90 minutes
- Fast-paced and competitive, yet cooperative
- Players compete in teams
- Spooky spins on classic game show games
- Halloween-themed in-game graphics and effects
Learn more about Ultimate Halloween Game Show.
2. Fear Factor
Fear Factor is a challenge game where players must complete gross, difficult, or terrifying tasks. To make the game interactive for hybrid teams, you can prepare in-person and at home challenges, and allow team members to tag each other for dares.
At home challenges:
- Eat a spoonful of the oldest item in your fridge
- Crack an egg on your forehead
- Stick your hand in ice water for 30 seconds
- Watch a video of a man covered in spiders
At work challenges:
- Stick your hand inside a mystery box
- Read your last text out loud
- Bite into a cricket lollipop
- Wear a rubber glove full of mayonnaise
- Write your greatest fear on a slip of paper and give it to a colleague
Note that players should have the option to pass on tasks and forego points, since no one should feel forced to do something uncomfortable.
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3. Costume Contest
In public or at home, costumes help party guests get into the Halloween spirit. The best part of this activity is that you can either host the competition live, or have participants upload their photos to social media or a shared album, which eliminates the need for teammates in different timezones to be present to participate.
However, if your group can dress up and show up at once, then you can have fun with themes. For instance, you could ask on-screen participants to dress up as paintings, television personalities, or aliens broadcasting from a distant planet.
Pro tip: Be sure to take plenty of screen shots in addition to in-person pictures!
Check out this guide to virtual costume contests for Halloween.
4. Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts make great Halloween activities for hybrid teams. These exercises can require participants to perform tasks and hunt for items both at home and in the office or party space. The game gets participants moving and energizes the teammates joining from behind a screen.
You can use the following prompts as a starters for your game.
Go get its:
- Toilet paper (mummy wraps)
- Bolt (for Frankenstein’s neck)
- Witch’s broom
- Red liquid
- Fake eyeball
- Weapon to fight off a zombie
- Scary movie
- Mask
- Magic potion
Just do its:
- Cackle like a witch
- Make a ghostly getup
- Jump out and scare an unsuspecting victim
- Make a fortune-telling prediction
- Don a cape
- Decorate a mini pumpkin
- Write a poem for a gravestone
- Eat 5 peeled grape “eyeballs”
Take a picture:
- Spider web
- Black cat
- Unlikely Halloween costume
- Headless horseman
- Sleeping upside down like a bat
- Something scary around the house
Check out this guide to virtual scavenger hunts and this list of clever scavenger hunt clues.
5. Murder Mystery
Murder mysteries are popular Halloween team building activities for hybrid teams. Be sure to get digital and physical copies of the script so that players onscreen and off can read parts and follow the story. You can have virtual participants perform the parts and ask in-person attendees to identify the killer, or vice versa. Whichever way you choose to play your murder mystery, using costumes, virtual backgrounds, and props can help participants get into character and set the atmosphere of the game.
Check out this list of virtual murder mystery games.
6. Ghost Who?
Ghost Who? is a semi-virtual, Halloween version of the classic board game “Guess Who?” In this spin on the game, remote teammates act as the characters. Players ask identifying questions, and teammates who do not match the traits must turn off their webcams. The first three questions of the game must be Halloween or costume-related, such as, “is your person dressed as an animal?” or “is your person wearing a wig?”
The leader can also flip the game and have virtual players guess while in-person players either leave the screen or sit down when eliminated.
Here are more board games playable online.
7. Creepy Cocktail Party
Spooky cocktail parties are one of the more relaxed hybrid activities for Halloween. For these gatherings, hosts can provide Halloween-themed drinks for in-person attendees while sending cocktail kits or reimbursing the cost of takeout cocktails for at-home participants. During the event, teammates can gather around the screen for games and conversation. You can use breakout rooms and strategically-scattered laptops to facilitate more small-group interaction between physically-present participants and virtual guests.
For more tips, check out this guide to virtual happy hours.
8. Truth or Dare
Truth or Dare is one of the best hybrid games for Halloween.
Here are some Halloween Truth or Dare prompts:
- I dare you to eat a handful of your kid’s/roommate’s Halloween candy.
- I dare you to scream at the top of your lungs.
- I dare you to make a costume out of 5 things you have within reach.
- I dare you to make your best monster face.
- What was your most embarrassing past Halloween costume?
- What was the scariest supernatural experience you ever had?
- What is a true crime that happened in or near your hometown?
- What horror film gave you nightmares?
- What are you afraid of?
For more prompts, here is a truth or dare generator.
9. Guess the Ghoul
Guess the Ghoul is one of the most fun hybrid Halloween games. To play this game, remote team members wear masks, display virtual backgrounds, and change their display names. In-person team members must identify the colleague behind each mask, either by guessing outright or asking yes or no questions. The host can limit the number of guesses or questions, or can make the game a race to identify all masked teammates before the timer runs out. Or, players can list their best guesses and receive one point per correct answer.
Check out more games to play on Zoom.
10. Interactive Movies
Movies make a great hybrid activity for teams because virtual participants can stream the film while in-person attendees watch the flick on a large screen. Watching the same movie at the same time can encourage feelings of togetherness and solidarity, even when not all members of the group are in the same room. From horror films to holiday favorites like Hocus Pocus, there is no shortage of movies to watch in October.
To make your hybrid-movie-party more hands-on, you can introduce interactive elements. Rocky Horror Picture Show is the best example, as there are certain rituals many audiences perform while watching the film such as shouting lines at the screen or tossing toilet paper. However, Rocky Horror Picture Show tends to be a little risque for most workplaces, so feel free to create your own participation cues for other Halloween movies.
You can also turn movie-watching into a virtual drinking game by having every viewer pick a holiday word like “ghost” or a common trope like going into the basement to escape a killer and drinking every time the trigger appears. Or, you and your teammates can simply yell at the characters in slasher movies every time they make a bad decision.
11. Monster Mash
Monster Mash is a Halloween-themed team dance party and an observational exercise all in one. To start the activity, the leader plays “The Monster Mash.” Then, in-person and remote team members start dancing. The point of the activity is for every participant to do the same moves at the same time. At any point in the exercise, any team member can perform a new move, and the rest of the group must follow. The leader can eliminate the last player to catch on and switch moves, or the whole group can continue to dance until the end of the song. Either way, the exercise helps hybrid teams to pay more attention and pick up on virtual body language. Not to mention, dancing to this silly song can serve as a solid de-stresser and morale booster!
12. Terrifying Trivia
Trivia is one of the best competitions for hybrid teams. There are many ways to structure the game, such as splitting remote teammates and present teammates into opposing teams, using virtual participants as audience members and hint-givers, or facilitating a Halloween version of Hollywood Squares with the online players as the boxes.
Simply get your questions ready, ask players to choose spooky team names, and keep score. Examples of festive game categories might include slasher films, mythical creatures, Halloween around the world, urban legends, serial killers, and candy brands.
Check out this guide to virtual trivia. Or, for a fully-hosted Halloween game, check out scary movie trivia.
13. Pumpkin Carving
Pumpkin carving is one of the easiest hybrid Halloween activities for teams. You can supply your in-person teams with pumpkins and reimburse your remote workers for the costs of buying the gourds. Or, you could also send your virtual team members pumpkin decorating kits filled with supplies like sharpies, glitter glue, and googly eyes.
Check out this guide to doing virtual pumpkin decorating.
Final Thoughts
Planning engaging Halloween programming for both in-office and virtual teams can be a challenge. However, there are many spooky seasonal activities and games that are fun online and in person. The most important aspect of planning hybrid Halloween events is to think up ways to involve virtual guests instead of relegating your remote attendees to audience members. While hybrid activities do take some planning, these gatherings do not require extraordinary efforts to be fun and spooky. Hybrid activities are a means of bringing distanced teams together and creating a sense of inclusion and belonging among teams that may not work side by side on a daily basis. Halloween is an especially fun opportunity to bring the team together to unwind and share a laugh.
Next, check out this list of online Haunted houses and this collection of virtual escape rooms.
Angela Robinson