When your audience’s energy seems low, and you still have a long way to go, it is sometimes necessary to shake the room a little, sometimes literally! To this effect, we have compiled a small list and explanation of fun energizers you could use to chase away the drowsiness of your audience:

*Note, all of the following require that you either clear the space or move the audience to an open space.

  • Attract and repel Gather everyone together and ask them to start walking around the room individually. Tell them to choose 2 other participants (without saying anything out loud), one of which they must stay as close as possible to, and the other they have to stay as far as possible from. Juggling these two competing goals is guaranteed to lighten the mood within minutes.

  • Got your finger Ask everyone to stand in a circle, close together, and face inward. Next, tell each participant to stick their right hand out with their palms facing the ceiling. They then have to put their left index finger on the open palm of whoever’s standing to their left. When you shout “Go”, each participant must try to stop the person to their left from catching their finger, while simultaneously trying to grab whoever’s is on the right.

  • River Bank Make a line on the floor (anyhow), call one side “river” and the other “bank”. People must jump to one or the otherside when the name of the side is called by the facilitator, or have one foot on either side if you call “riverbank”.

  • Energy Ball Throw an imaginary ball at each other, catch it and throw it again. This ball could be heavy to light from one person to the other, big or small, you could drop it, you could hit it with a bat, maybe you don’t catch it and it hits you in the face… Anything is possible! Be creative and see what fun it brings!

  • Shake Off Start shaking your right hand up high 5 times, then left hand up high 5 times, the right foot down low 5 times, then left foot down low 5 times, then repeat cycle with only 4 shakes, etc all the way to a full cycle with one shake per limb. Everyone should count each shake out loud.

  • Shuffle the People Ask people to sort themselves in one single line according to some metric (age, birthdate, size…), then give another metric and shuffle your people again. And of course give a direction! This allows some getting to know each other and the mess that ensues makes for fun and laughter, the best energisers!