Kraken Bingo
Give people a reason to talk to strangers between the talks
A sixteen-square card, a QR code on the badge, and a conference where the hallway works as well as the stage.
Create a gameWhy this works as a bingo card
Conference programmes are good at the stage and bad at the hallway. The talks are scheduled, staffed and rehearsed; the twenty minutes between them — where most of the value of attending actually sits — are left entirely to whether people happen to be brave. Most aren't, so they check email.
A bingo card is a permission slip. "Find someone who came further than you" gives an attendee an opening line and a reason to use it, which is all most people need. It also gives you something quizzes and polls can't: an activity that runs continuously across two days without an organiser on stage, produces photos you can use afterwards, and gently rewards the people who make the effort. A quiz owns the room during a session. This owns the corridor between them.
Set it up in five minutes
- 1
Create a team
Make a team for the event and switch on publicly discoverable, so attendees can find it by name.
- 2
Add a game and pick the board
A 4×4 card fits a one or two-day event — 16 missions across two days is enough to matter without competing with the talks.
- 3
Paste the tasks
Paste the missions below. Name your own tracks, sponsors and rooms; specifics make the card feel like part of the event.
- 4
Invite everyone
Print the QR code on badges, put it on a closing slide, or drop it in the event app.
- 5
Play, and prove it
Announce the leaderboard from the stage once a day. That single mention is what makes people play.
16 tasks you can copy
A 4×4 board needs exactly 16 tasks, so this list fills a card with nothing left over. Copy it and paste it straight into the bulk task field.
- 1Find someone who travelled further than you to get here
- 2Ask a speaker the question you nearly didn't ask
- 3Meet someone who does your job at another company
- 4Sit with people you don't know at lunch
- 5Get a recommendation for a talk you weren't going to attend
- 6Find the smallest company here
- 7Ask someone what problem brought them to this event
- 8Meet someone from a different industry entirely
- 9Swap contacts with someone you'd genuinely call
- 10Find someone attending for the first time
- 11Learn one thing you'll change on Monday
- 12Visit a stand you'd normally walk past
- 13Ask two people what the best session was
- 14Find someone who disagrees with the keynote
- 15Take a photo with someone you just met
- 16Introduce two people who hadn't met
Recommended setup
- Board size
- 4×4 — 16 missions across the event
- How long to run it
- One to two days. Open the card at registration and close it during the final session.
- Worth turning on
- A publicly discoverable team plus the QR code. Attendees join in seconds without an organiser touching a list of names.
What makes it work
Photo and video proof
Photo proof turns the game into a content stream you can use afterwards — the candid pictures from a card like this are usually better than the official ones.
A live ranking
The live ranking gives you something to put on a screen between sessions and something to announce from the stage, which is what turns a card people were given into a card people are playing.
Everyone in one chat
The event chat gives attendees somewhere to coordinate that isn't a hashtag nobody follows, and it stays available after everyone goes home.
Frequently asked questions
How do attendees join without accounts being created for them?
Make the team publicly discoverable and print its QR code. People scan, sign in once, and land in the right team — no list of names, no imports, nothing for the organiser to run.
How is this different from a conference quiz app?
It's complementary rather than competing. A quiz owns the room during a session; this runs continuously in the gaps and rewards talking to people rather than answering questions.
How many missions for a two-day event?
Sixteen. That's a handful a day, achievable without skipping talks. For a single-day event, use a 3×3 card with nine.
Does it need someone to run it during the event?
No. Once the card is set up it runs itself, though one mention of the leaderboard from the stage each day makes a large difference to how many people play.
Can sponsors be part of the card?
Yes, and it works if it's kept honest — "visit a stand you'd normally walk past" is a mission attendees will do. Sixteen squares of sponsor names is a card nobody touches.
What do we do with the card after the event?
The photos and the ranking stay available, so it doubles as a wrap-up — a leaderboard to name winners from and a set of candid pictures for the follow-up email.
Start your first card
Free to create, no card needed, and your team joins with one link.
Create a gameOther ways people play
Human bingo for new hires — without printing a single card
Sixteen small missions that get a new starter talking to people, spread across their first month instead of their first meeting.
Team building bingo that runs for a month, not an hour
Give your team a card of 25 challenges, a few weeks to finish them, and a shared album of everything they did.