Greetings from Everywhere
Meet six people, and greet each one a completely different way.
Everyone moves around greeting each other, and the screen keeps changing how: a handshake, then a bow, then a wave from across the room, then one they pick from four — the elbow salute, the double nod. It gets a room of strangers touching base with a dozen people in three minutes.
Everybody up and moving. Every time the screen shows a greeting, use it on the nearest person you haven't met yet. Keep moving between them. If a greeting isn't for you, a wave does the same job every single time.
A room of strangers needs to have met a dozen people before you start, and you have space to move.
Props: None
Run this when…
If none of these is your room, pick another.The opening five minutes of a session with strangers
A conference where nobody has spoken yet
Any group who arrived in cliques and sat in them
How to run it
Written to be glanced at mid-room, not memorised.
- Everyone stands and starts moving around the space.
- Say once that a wave replaces any greeting for anyone who would rather not touch, then never mention it again.
- Each card is a greeting. Everyone uses it on the nearest person.
- Keep them moving between each one — the movement is what mixes the room.
- It builds from formal to daft: handshake, bow, high five, slow motion.
- Near the end, pairs pick one of four greetings on screen and teach it to three more people.
- Stop while it is still loud.
Running it well
Only the host sees these. Participants never do.
- Advance before the room finishes the last greeting. Waiting until everyone has done it lets the energy settle and you never get it back.
- The picked greeting near the end is the one people keep using all day. Give it more time than the others, and expect it to reappear at coffee.
- Say the wave alternative once, at the start, in one line. Offering it again mid-run singles out exactly the person it is meant to protect.
Watch out for
Space, safety and the traps worth knowing before you start.
- Most of this is contact. Offer the wave as an equal option before the first greeting, and take it as read afterwards.
- People walk backwards into each other. Clear bags and chairs, and say walking pace as you start.
- Bowing and hand-clasping mean different things in different places. Keep your own framing light and let people adapt them.
Seated version
“Everybody stand up” is not a neutral instruction. Offer this alongside, not instead.
Every greeting becomes an at-a-distance version — a wave, a nod, a salute, a thumbs up — aimed at somebody across the room. The mixing is lost but the meeting is not.
Run it yourself
Free for thirty days, no card. Put it on the projector and step through it — nobody in the room needs a phone.
Start freeAlready have an account? Sign in
- Where
- Needs a room
- Props
- None
- Big screen
- Required
- Teams
- Individual only