Icebreaker
Workshop participants
Workshop Icebreaker Bingo
Warm up workshop attendees quickly with a bingo card built for learning environments.
Workshops often start cold, with participants sitting quietly and waiting for the facilitator to begin. This bingo card gets people up, talking and engaged before the main content starts, making the room noticeably warmer and more collaborative.
How to run this activity
Hand out cards as attendees arrive and take their seats. Give a five to ten minute window before the session officially starts for people to mingle and fill in squares. Facilitators can use completed cards to spot common ground between attendees, which is useful for later group exercises. Recognise the first finisher with a shout-out rather than a prize to keep the energy focused on the workshop ahead.
Full prompt list
- Find someone attending this workshop for the first time
- Find someone who works in a similar role to you
- Find someone who has used this topic's tools before
- Find someone who travelled from outside the local area
- Find someone who signed up on someone else's recommendation
- Find someone hoping to solve a specific problem today
- Find someone who has attended a similar workshop before
- Find someone who brought a notebook rather than a laptop
- Find someone who works for a different type of organisation than you
- Find someone who arrived early
- Find someone who knows another attendee already
- Find someone with more than five years in their field
- Find someone new to their current role this year
- Find someone who has taught this subject to others
- Find someone who prefers hands-on learning to lectures
- Find someone who has read a book on today's topic
- Find someone sitting at a different table to you
- Find someone who set a personal goal for today's session
- Find someone who is a manager or team lead
- Find someone who has never used the software being taught
- Find someone who found the venue tricky to locate
- Find someone who prefers morning sessions to afternoon ones
- Find someone hoping to bring back at least one idea to their team
- Find someone who has met the facilitator before
Customisation ideas
- Add squares related to the specific workshop topic or software being taught
- Include a square for identifying someone who can help others during exercises
- Adjust language for a more formal or academic setting
Frequently asked questions
Five to ten minutes is usually enough, especially if you start it as people are still arriving and settling in. It shouldn't eat into your core content time.
Yes, noting who matched on which squares can help you form varied breakout groups later. It's a useful, low-effort way to map out the room's mix of experience and interests.
Yes, though it's worth tailoring a few squares to reference the workshop topic. This helps surface relevant experience levels among attendees early on.