- Dusty Folwarczny
- Updated: August 4, 2026
What Makes a Good Ice Breaker for In-Person Events?
The best ice breakers get people talking and collaborating quickly, without feeling forced or overly personal. The most memorable (and our favorite) ones use a visual, hands-on element to lower the pressure.
Luckily, a thoughtful ice breaker activity can help put attendees at ease and jumpstart conversations and collaboration. At Ink Factory, our artist team has facilitated all kinds of creative warm-up exercises for groups of every size. Here, we’ve rounded up our five favorite ice breaker ideas for meetings. Some are easier to execute with an artist on hand, while others you can simply DIY.
1. Event Activations
How it works:
Ink Factory designs and installs a whiteboard or wall at your meeting or event site—typically in an open area where attendees can easily see and engage with it.
The event activation features one or a series of questions you’d like attendees to answer. A team of visual note-takers (also called graphic recorders) manages the board, inviting attendees to share their answers, then illustrates those responses live. This is the same approach behind our interactive activation service, just applied specifically as an ice breaker at the start of an event.
Attendees can share answers verbally or write them down. When the event wraps, the illustration can be digitized and shared.
The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago used an engagement board at its annual fundraising event, which focused on increasing zero-waste practices. Ink Factory designed the wall using recycled materials, then posed questions to guests and illustrated their answers.
"The live notes installation was a beautiful addition to the event, and helped our guests to engage with the event's theme around sustainability in a meaningful and interactive manner."
2. Reverse Pictionary
This is Ink Factory’s take on the classic word-drawing game. It’s guaranteed to give groups an energy boost and lots of laughs. It gets bonus points for working well in live and virtual settings. You’ll need an artist to facilitate.
How it works:
Assign everyone a unique question. For example, “what’s your spirit animal?” or “what’s your favorite snack?”
Next, each person takes a turn describing (but not giving away) their answer to the artist. So if your favorite snack is a pickle, you might tell the artist it’s green and sausage-shaped with warts.
The artist draws while the group guesses. If no one guesses correctly within 3 minutes, reveal your answer and move on to the next person.
Meeting virtually? Email questions to participants in advance to keep things moving. Have the artist share their screen so the group can watch the drawing in real time, and leave microphones on so everyone can guess.
3. Blind Contour Drawing
This exercise is a staple of drawing classes and is ideal for smaller groups. It helps hone observation skills, and many participants find it calming—it can also be hilarious. Use it as an ice breaker, or offer it during breaks to clear the mind. No art skills required.
How it works:
Provide each participant with a pencil and paper. Ask everyone to identify an object in the room to draw, or specify an object yourself.
Next, instruct participants to draw the contour of the object in one continuous line without looking at their paper.
When time is up, have everyone share their drawings. It’s almost impossible to create a realistic drawing, so the results are often funny. Remember, it’s about the process, not the finished piece.
Our suggestion: Provide an example or demonstrate for everyone to reduce group trepidation about drawing.
4. Visual Discussion Guide
This tool helps spark collaboration, especially when bringing together people who don’t know each other. Implement it at the beginning of a breakout session to rally everyone around a task. Working with an artist ensures an output that can be utilized beyond the event.
How it works:
You’ll work with an artist to design a visual discussion guide specific to your event’s purpose and objective. In some cases, the goal is to guide participants through a small-group brainstorming exercise.
During the event, the artist uses the discussion guide and illustrates the group’s ideas in real time. Once complete, groups can easily share their visualized ideas with one another.
Want to create a DIY visual discussion guide? Download our visual thinking toolkit for templates and icon packs to get you started.
Meeting virtually? Upload a digital version of your worksheet to a collaborative whiteboard tool like Mural or Google Meet’s Whiteboarding. The artist uses digital visual notes to illustrate the group’s ideas. When finished, groups can share screenshots of their completed work.
5. Visualize Your "Why"
This exercise centers on the question: what’s your why? It allows for self-reflection while also directing thought toward a shared purpose of a team, organization, or initiative. It’s ideal for mission-driven organizations and nonprofits.
How it works:
Participants have 45 minutes to complete this visioning exercise. Provide everyone with a marker and blank sheet of paper.
Ask the group to think about where they see themselves at a future moment in time—months, years, or even decades from now. Guide them to think about their purpose, their “why,” and how it manifests in the future.
Next, instruct the group to visualize this vision using one word and 2-3 images. Participants use art to eliminate options, resulting in a drawing that’s focused and intentional.
After everyone has created their personal visions, ask them to think about the future state of the business, industry, or whatever entity brought them together for this meeting or event. Provide time for participants to link the two visions and discuss them as a group.
Want to brainstorm the perfect ice breaker for your next meeting or event? We can help. And if an artist is already supporting your event with visual notes, they can easily help facilitate any of these ice breakers too. If you’re looking to build these skills into your team long-term, our visual thinking workshops are another great option worth exploring.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good ice breaker for a large group at a conference?
Event activations work especially well for large groups since attendees can participate at their own pace throughout the event, rather than everyone needing to take a turn at once like in a group game.
What ice breakers work for virtual or hybrid meetings?
Reverse Pictionary and Visual Discussion Guides both adapt well to virtual settings. An artist can share their screen to draw live while remote participants watch and guess or contribute in real time.
Do visual ice breakers need an artist to facilitate them?
Not necessarily. Activities like Blind Contour Drawing can be run DIY with no artist required, while others, like Engagement Boards and Reverse Pictionary, are more impactful with a professional artist facilitating.
How long should an ice breaker activity take?
Most ice breakers take 5-15 minutes, though more involved exercises like Visualize Your "Why" can run up to 45 minutes depending on group size and discussion time. Think about what you want to get out of the ice breaker session–a quick energizer, or a meaningful point of connection? That should inform the time you spend on it.
What's a good ice breaker for a nonprofit or mission-driven team?
Visualize Your "Why" is especially effective for mission-driven organizations, since it connects individual purpose to the team's shared goals.
How-To Schema:
Don't tell, show.
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