Cheap year-end party ideas for your company: what budget should you plan?

Every year, the same trade-off: mark the occasion to thank your teams, without letting the year-end weigh too heavily on the budget. Good news: a year-end company event can be both inexpensive and successful. You just need to know where the money goes.

What costs a lot in a year-end event

At a classic party, the game or entertainment itself is often only a small part of the bill. The rest is:

• the venue and its private hire;
• catering and drinks;
• travel and sometimes accommodation for employees coming from other sites;
• working time used up during the event.

For teams spread across several sites or working remotely, these costs multiply, even though some employees will not be able to attend anyway.

The most affordable formats

Online activities

With no venue and no caterer, an online activity cuts the bill down to the cost of the game or the host alone. It is also the format that reaches the most people: remote workers, branches, teams abroad.

Asynchronous formats

An activity that everyone does when they want does not take everyone away from work at the same time. The result: no block of production hours lost, and higher participation.

Activities that last

On the same budget, an activity spread over several weeks offers more moments of sharing than a single evening. Divided by the number of "rendezvous" created, the cost per highlight is much lower.

A concrete example: an online Christmas escape game

Our corporate Christmas escape game works on this model:

• an all-inclusive package based on headcount: from €375 excl. VAT for up to 30 employees to €6,250 excl. VAT for 501 to 1,000 employees;
• a price per participant that goes down with headcount, down to €3.75 excl. VAT above 1,000 employees (on quote);
• 20% off your event for a booking before November 7 (for example €299 excl. VAT instead of €375 for a team of 30), with personalization to match your brand included (worth €300 excl. VAT);
• 3 or 4 episodes of 15 minutes, one per week, to keep the whole month of December lively.

No venue, no caterer, no travel: the budget goes only to the activity.

Five tips for a cheap but successful Christmas party

1. Book early. Many providers offer early-bird rates in October and early November.
2. Aim for everyone. An activity that excludes remote workers costs less on paper, but misses its goal.
3. Pool resources with the works council. The works council (the CSE in France) can cover all or part of an activity open to every employee.
4. Bet on the group rather than on gifts. A ranking between departments creates more memories than an individual gift.
5. Measure participation. A dashboard lets you justify the budget the following year.

In short

A cheap year-end activity is not a cut-price activity: it is one that puts the budget into the experience rather than the logistics. To get a feel for it, try the first episode of our Christmas game for free, or browse our 10 ideas for remote Christmas activities.

Try our Christmas escape game

3 or 4 episodes of 15 minutes, a ranking between departments, at the office or from home. The first episode is free to play.

→ Discover the corporate Christmas game

Going further

• Year-end team building: remote, on-site or hybrid, which format to choose?
• Year-end party with remote or hybrid teams: what to do?
• Year-end team building for multi-site and multi-branch companies