Create the Best Company Anniversary Event: The Complete Playbook
Each year your company gets a bit older, and there’s more to celebrate. Throwing an anniversary celebration is the best way to bring together employees and reflect on all of the accomplishments of the previous years. Anniversary events are powerful: they both inspire current employees, and promote your company as a great place to work and do business with to your customers and future employees. Happy employees are productive employees, so how can you plan the best anniversary event possible to leave a smile on your coworkers’ faces for the rest of the year?
How to plan your company’s anniversary event in 5 simple steps:
Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to bringing an amazing company anniversary event to life.
1. Decide on when to have your event.
Do you want to host it on the exact date of the anniversary, or the nearest weekend? Is the anniversary in the middle of busy season? Make sure the date is a good fit before booking anything or inviting anyone.
2. Pick your venue.
The venue should reflect how you want your attendees to feel at your event. If you’re going for an upscale gala, a chandelier-clad ballroom will make your employees feel like royalty. If you want a comfortable, laid-back setting, see if you can rent out space at your local professional sports team’s arena. You can even use an easy sourcing tool to save time finding the venue.
3. Now that you’ve got your venue selected, you’ll need to figure out what to do with all the space.
Whether it be a small ballroom or a rooftop terrace, you can’t spend all day every day there measuring and laying down tape on floors. Bring the floor-planning to you with simple event diagramming software. You can collaborate with the rest of your team, and with your vendors, to make sure once you’re onsite, everything goes off without a hitch.
4. Plan out the activities for your company anniversary event.
Will you be doing a seated dinner? Is there going to be a presentation? A time for dancing? Since you’ve laid out the floorplan of the space, you’ll be able to imagine and plan out what your attendees will be doing from the moment they arrive. Arrange for your food vendors and staff to facilitate the event’s activities.
5. Promote your company anniversary event to everyone invited!
Get your invitees excited to come together and celebrate. Include in your promotional material some sneak peaks of what to expect from the menu or the presentations, or whatever you’ll be doing at this event. They’ll show up to your anniversary event ready to celebrate with all of the work you’ve put in.
Now that you know the planning basics, let’s explore a few unique ideas that can make your big day extra impactful.
Explore ideas for the best business anniversary events
The best company anniversary events bring employees closer together and make them feel valued. Here are a few tricks for achieving just that!
1. Have a special guest performance.
Whether it be an actual professional musician, or an executive who has a hidden talent, this will give all the attendees something to talk about after the event is over!
2. Host on more than just milestone years.
While many anniversary events are held for major milestones of years (i.e. a decade), every year should be celebrated in its own way. You might consider throwing your company a Sweet Sixteen or a Lucky Number 7 anniversary. Don’t limit yourself to when you can celebrate all of your company’s accomplishments.
3. Take song requests ahead of time and during the event.
Create a form for people to submit song requests. Whether you want to have a dance floor or not, your attendees will love hearing their selection come on.
4. Pick the most unique venue.
Have a lot of animal lovers? See if you can rent out a part of the local zoo or aquarium! Have a great skyline in your city? Pick a rooftop venue for a panoramic sunset view.
5. Have a theme for your celebration.
If you’re going for a fancy affair, make the black tie optional dress code a bit more interesting by having everyone wear your company colors. If your anniversary event is all about fun, make it a costume party. Get people out of their usual business-casual to spice up the event.
6. Launch a new product or project your company is working on.
Going through a rebrand? Have a new cutting-edge feature being rolled out? Work internally with the team working on that to see if the timelines would match up for a launch at the anniversary event.
7. Make a video.
Get videographers to document and edit a video of the event “ and share it! In the age of social media, your attendees will want to share this. This means more attention being driven to your event, your company, and all the hard work you put in.
8. Share favorite memories
Have employees submit favorite memories of the company throughout the years. Whether it’s a video of them closing their first deal, or a story about how someone at your company made them smile, people will love seeing their coworkers faces and names throughout the space.
9. Get a group photo!
How often will you have so many of your coworkers in one place? Use this time to get everyone together to say cheese.
10. Give out awards or superlatives.
Allow invitees ahead of time to nominate or vote for their coworkers, and have them announced at the event. This will boost comradery and give them more things to look forward to.
If your company is celebrating a big milestone year, it’s time to pull out all of the stops. Check out these ideas specifically for 10 and 50 year anniversaries:
See top tips for throwing a company’s 10th anniversary party
- Have a decades theme to celebrate a decade of business! You can pick one era specifically, or leave it up to your attendees for a fun mix of costumes.
- Use tin throughout your décor. Traditionally, a 10 year anniversary is celebrated with tin. Whether it be in your centerpieces or a tin party favor for the attendees, tin is a great way celebrate.
- Pick out a fun keepsake for attendees to remember the occasion, such as these awesome anniversary party favors.
Get the best tips for holding a 50th company anniversary party
- Similar to the tips for 10 year anniversaries above, the traditional symbol for 50th anniversaries is gold. Gild your venue with gold decorations for a sparkling event.
- Design a logo to promote this milestone on your emails, website, and marketing materials. Get some ideas on how to create your anniversary logo here.
- Do an All American themed party with food and decorations from all 50 states. This idea works even better if your company has expanded throughout America.
Learn even more about planning a company anniversary event:
We celebrate a company anniversary to bring together employees and reflect on all of the accomplishments of the previous years.
To celebrate your company’s anniversary hold an event for employees and customers. Make the theme unique to your company’s differentiator, and provide guests with a limited edition swag item or memento such as fun photos from a photo booth.
Now you’re ready to hold the best company anniversary party!
Your company’s anniversary events can be the most rewarding events to plan. Everyone is coming together to celebrate the growth your company has gone through over the years. From boosting employee morale, to recognizing accomplishments, and creating opportunities for marketing in your company’s industry, your anniversary event will leave a lasting impact and mark a special moment in history for your company. Up next, discover creative corporate event entertainment ideas.