Best live event 2024

The EE Live: On the Road roadshow is an annual event designed to engage and inspire the company’s contact centre employees, who are all based in the UK and Ireland, through interactive and memorable experiences.

It has several objectives, including enhancing EE’s colleagues personal connection to the brand, fostering stronger relationships with co-workers and strengthening ties to their local communities.

The roadshow, which took place in July 2024 across 22 locations, focused on delivering fun. The approach taken by event organisers DRPG was rooted in created engaging, inclusive and educational experiences through gamification and interactivity.

Each roadshow featured six different pieces of kit across different zones. After a 40-minute presentation Making it Local, focusing on the role and priorities of that specific team, and celebrating local award winners, delegates were invited into the Investing in You zone.

Delegates were invited to navigate through flexible working, wellbeing and community challenge zones, each of which had two main points of interest.

For example, the wellbeing zone was keen to showcase EE’s newly launched online GP service. DRPG created a bespoke life-size Operation game, where participants extracted objects while answering questions about the new service.

They were also invited to engage in a calming origami activity, the benefits of which had been extolled by a founder of EE, who used origami to tackle their anxiety.

In the flexible working zone, a Jenga-style game was used to highlight flexible working tools. Coloured blocks represented everyday responsibilities, such as getting an MOT for the car or a dentist’s appointment, while black blocks symbolised EE’s flexible working tools, such as seasonal swaps or flexi-time.

The goal was to use the blocks to stabilise the tower and build it higher, demonstrating how these tools support a balanced work-life structure.

A social space was also set aside in the flexible working zone, allowing delegates to relax and discuss the options available and the impact on their lives. Menus featured case studies showing how local colleagues had embraced flexible working and the impact on their lives.

Community Challenge is an EE-wide initiative supporting local charities. The Community Challenge zone offered the chance for local teams to boost their pledges.

A money grabbing machine was transformed into a pledge accelerator, encouraging delegates to grab prizes, including extra volunteering hours, £500 in funds to boost their pledge, £200 to treat a team while on a volunteering day or £10 for themselves.

A photobooth carried the words Pledge, Pose, Print and Pin, encouraging delegates to write their individual pledges on their instant photos and pin them to a pledge wall.

At the end of the day, delegates could also pick up EE merchandise, including a new hoodie.

DRPG delivered 140 roadshows across 18 days in 22 locations, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Delegates scored it 4.6 out of five.