Meeting and corporate event planners are always in need of fresh ideas to use as icebreakers. Meeting and event participants attend so many functions with icebreakers that there is a good chance they have already participated in all of the old, tried-and-true activities that have been popular over the years. Because of this, the best way to mix things up and show your attendees that this will not be yet another boring meeting or event filled with hackneyed icebreaker games and team-building activities is to come up with fun icebreakers they have likely never participated in before.

One such icebreaker would be building houses of cards. Building card houses takes patience and teamwork and is a great way to encourage your participants to get to know one another and learn ways to work together well. This is a very manageable activity that can be completed in small groups, which also means this icebreaker can be used to break your group into smaller working groups or breakout groups.

In order to successfully implement a card house building activity, you will need as many large, flat surfaces as you have teams. Your meeting or conference tables will likely work fine for this. You will also need several decks of cards per team, keeping in mind that it can take more than a deck of cards just to build a single-level card house, depending on the size. If you would like to indulge your team’s competitive spirit, you can make this a competition and give prizes for the largest, tallest, strongest or most unique house of cards.