A Guide To Gathering: Ways to Make Your Unplugged Programs Meaningful and Memorable

There are many options to make your unplugged gatherings and events a success. Whether you are looking to make this a one-time event or an ongoing program, we hope this guide will get the wheels turning. Each community will have different offerings. Below you will find steps to help you encourage your community to unplug. 

Step One: Determine your Target Audience

Do you want to reach - young children, teens, young adults, older adults, families etc? Once you figure that out, you can move onto choosing an activity that will be most appropriate.

Step Two: Determine the Type of Activity

Things might look different by the time NDU 2021 rolls around so please stay up to date on your city’s recommendations and rules about gathering in-person. As an alternate to live events, you can plan a virtual event that inspires families to unplug together on their own. For example, get a local artist to paint or an expert on game playing to show some tricks. Then people can do the activity offline following the event.

Some questions to consider:

• will it be a one time event vs. ongoing (1 x a month unplugged dining)?

• are there partners you can recruit who have a shared goal? Partnerships create opportunities to use a location at a reduced rate or event for free!

• Look for sponsors to give monetary or in-kind donations for a raffle prize. For instance, outdoor recreation businesses may offer a discount voucher or a free class.

Suggested Activities and Locations for your Unplugged Event

1. Connect with your Community: host an event at the Farmers Market - Farmers Markets are an excellent place to connect with people in your community.  They provide a healthy outdoor environment and lend themselves to a nice partnership as many vendors and farmers understand the value of unplugging and connecting with nature and healthy foods. Consider seeing if you can get a booth space at your local market.  Some markets may even waive the booth space (or share space), particularly if it is a 1 time event and likely to bring in new customers. Fun ideas for families include: making a scavenger hunt for kids, encouraging them to be “Adventure Tasters”, doing quick nature crafts, or letting them shop with fake dollars from pre-approved vendors. 

2. Host an Unplugged Dining Night - Find a restaurant(s), winery or brewery that does not have any TVs for starters.  Secondly, look for places with quiet music.  Approach the manager to see if they would offer an incentive to diners who come in and place their cell phones in a basket or box for the duration of their meal (ie - giving 15% off or a free cookie).  Perhaps they could create a special themed drink for the night. Have some table games available and/or tie your evening in with an activity (Trivia, Game or Craft night) which will give people something to keep their hands busy with.  Offering an onsite activity also might mean a better draw for the restaurant from new customers. Ask if they will consider offering an incentive that gets the customer to return (2 for 1 drink coupon at next visit). Dining establishments love repeat customers.  

3. Get Crafty: Host a Crafting Night - wine and paint parties, macrame hanging craft classes, pottery and wreath making classes are all pretty popular.  You may find these already in existence like Paint With A Twist or Mint Studios or you can propose putting one together yourself or enlisting a local craft business to hold a class at a restaurant or bar.  The two businesses can cross promote and help each other get new customers. For kids there are a variety of businesses that cater to youth including Michael’s and Home Depot who offer weekend craft classes. For a DIY activity that spurs imagination and creativity, encourage them to make a small fairy or woodland creatures garden using nature items. During Covid, ask your neighbors to do the same and to place the gardens out by the street so people can walk through the neighborhood and see them all.

4. Give Your Cell Phones a Nap: Decorate Cell Phone Bags- We provide cell phone bags with our logo on them for your participants (while supplies last) but why not make it more personalized? Have your group get plain canvas bags and paint something that is meaningful to them on it. Try embroidering bags or using an iron on picture. We have one HERE you can try!

5. Getting Out:  Plan an Escape Room Outing - these are popping up around the country and are lots of fun for families and companies of smaller size.  Escape Rooms are a perfect unplugged activity as there are no phones permitted and people have to work together to solve the clues to escape a room decorated in a particular theme (an old saloon, a jail cell, china town). These are also excellent team building activities. There are many companies like The Escape Game and Escapology with locations in multiple cities. In Temecula CA there is an outdoor version called Mind Trap Escape Room.

9. Relaxation therapy:  host a spa event -  Spas have been in the mindfulness game for a long time now and would make for an ideal location for an unplugged event. See if a spa near you would give a discount to a group coming in for an unplugged night. 

10. Search for it:  Plan a book scavenger hunt - see how many Little Free Libraries you can find in your area (www.littlefreelibrary.com).  These mini libraries are located all over the world and are ideal for a scavenger hunt for all ages.  Some have very unusual containers for the books.  Hide something in one of the libraries and give people clues so they check several around town. 

11. Slip and Slide Anytime: Ice Blocking-  Who needs snow to go sledding?  A fun activity for teens and adults (young ones if they are careful) is Ice Blocking.  It’s like sledding without the snow or sled.  All that’s needed is a block of ice (think Smart & Final or some bigger grocery stores), some hand towels or rags and a grassy hill free from rocks and sticks.  Each time we would do this with our kids invariable some college kids would ask where we got our ice and then go get their own.  We all just want to be kids sometimes right?  Ice blocking brings out the fun in all of us.

12. Share Your Story:  Host a Story Slam! - Share stories of the sunset you experienced prior to cell phones, or emails or texts you wish you’d never sent, facebook fights or twitter wars that got ridiculous or tall tales of your digital addiction. Host an event and invite others to share their stories. An easy way to involve others is to ask everyone to share their “Six Word Memoir” on unplugging.  

15. Give Back: Volunteer or Help Someone in Need - So many people cannot leave their homes right now, so bringing a little light into their lives can lift their spirits.  A meaningful unplugged activity for adults or kids (enlist a scout troop, youth group, etc) is to purchase a paper lantern at stores like Walmart or Michaels or the Paper Lantern Store.  Use markers or paint to decorate colorful pictures and uplifting words.  Hang a series of them outside of your windows or for an individuals, you can stuff it with a small string of holiday lights and connect it to a timer for auto lighting each night. Alternatively, purchase a battery operated mini light HERE. Want to incorporate upcycling?  Use old milk cartons (many examples can be found on the internet).  Consider bringing these creations to businesses who are struggling, or have a social distancing street gathering where neighbors make their own and then hang them outside windows or on porches unifying their community. You can also bring them to nursing homes (pictured right) along with big signs and letters that residents can read later when they are needing a little pick me up.

2. Promote on Social Media - it may seem ironic but yes you will likely want to use social media to connect with your audience.  This is a good way to reach people efficiently at first but we recommend you take it a step further.  People tend to over commit on social media groups at times and then not take the commitment seriously when event time arrives.  If possible, try to connect via email or text if you want to solidify expected attendance.

3. Add your Event to Online Calendars - most online papers (large and small) as well as news and radio stations have sections where you can post about your event on their calendars. Create an Eventbrite post if that will reach your audience. 

4. Alert the Media - post articles in your local papers. Your local Patch or some of the smaller papers sometimes are great if you can’t catch the eye of the bigger ones. If you have a bigger event where you expect a bigger crowd and will have some photo ops let the TV news stations know what you are doing.  There is a lot of news competing for limited air time but some stations do like upbeat, positive, community stories.  See which channel seems to cover more of those types of local feel-good stories. Sample Media Alert