Sébastien Balieu
The running order, 9am to 5pm
Time | What happens | Length |
|---|---|---|
9:00 - 9:30 | Arrivals, coffee, stragglers | 30 min |
9:30 - 11:00 | All-hands: numbers, direction, questions | 90 min |
11:00 - 11:15 | Break | 15 min |
11:15 - 12:30 | Breakouts in groups of six to eight | 75 min |
12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch | 90 min |
14:00 - 16:15 | Outdoor activity, on your feet | 135 min |
16:15 - 17:00 | Regroup, share back, photos | 45 min |
17:00 | Finish |
Two hours forty-five of seated content in the morning, one block in the afternoon. The imbalance is deliberate: everything that needs a room is grouped before lunch.
Give the all-hands a finish time at the same moment you give it a start time. Without that limit the overrun comes out of the 11:15 breakouts, the only slot in the morning where anyone other than the speaker talks.
Anything raised at 10:55 gets written down and answered after lunch.
The slot you place first
Fix lunch at 12:30 and give it 90 minutes. Write that block in before anything else, then fill the morning working backwards and the afternoon working forwards.
It is also your only slack. If the morning runs twenty minutes over, you take those minutes out of the meal rather than out of the afternoon, whose start time is set with your supplier.
The afternoon runs as one block
After the meal, take the group outside. Block 2 hours 15, from 14:00 to 16:15. An Urban Rally route runs 120 minutes including the briefing, over 2 to 6 km on foot at your own pace. The spare fifteen minutes are for gathering the group at the finish point.
Pick something people can do in what they wore to work. A walking route needs no change of clothes and no locker, and there are no medical forms to chase three weeks out.
The countdown: four dates to lock
Deadline | What you lock in |
|---|---|
8 weeks out | Date and venue |
3 weeks out | Invitation sent, headcount confirmed |
10 days out | Outdoor supplier booked |
7 days out | Access codes and kit received |
1 day out | Team line-ups |
Eight weeks is what Weezevent, a French events platform, gives for a group under 50 people: six to eight weeks, stretching to three or six months once the format gets complicated. ERA Experiences quotes five to eight weeks for the same size of event.
The ten-day mark comes from the supplier side. Coddy starts preparing a game ten days before the event and sends the access codes seven days out. Booking on a Tuesday for the following Thursday will not work. The full timeline sits on the how it works page.
For the teams, write the list yourself the day before and mix the departments. Leave the group to sort itself out on the street and you lose any say in who plays with whom. A Coddy team is six players at most.
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What the day costs, line by line
Weezevent puts a one-day event at €80 to €300 per head, all in. ERA Experiences gives €100 per person excluding VAT as the floor for a residential format with an overnight stay.
The afternoon activity is the line you can price first, because it is quoted as a flat fee.
For 40 players, Coddy's PRO package is €740 excluding VAT, which works out at €18.50 a head. PREMIUM, with an on-site Game Master, comes to €1,100, or €27.50. Under 20 players, the self-service format is €33.05 per team.
The pricing page sets out what each package covers. Invoices run at 30 days.
Price the food and the venue next: that is where the rest of the envelope goes.
Three decisions to make before the invite goes out
The finish time. Put 17:00 on the invitation rather than "around 5". A firm time is what lets someone book the 17:40 train.
The afternoon format. If it calls for particular clothing or equipment, the invitation has to say so. A Coddy route calls for one smartphone per team and nothing else.
Who writes the team line-ups. You can leave the list until the night before, but decide now that you are the one writing it.
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Key takeaways
Fix lunch at 12:30 and give it 90 minutes before you fill in anything else. That block is your only slack if the morning runs over.
Give the all-hands a finish time as you open it. Without that limit the overrun comes out of the 11:15 breakouts, the only slot where anyone other than the speaker talks.
Book the outdoor activity at least 10 days ahead: Coddy starts preparation at day 10 and sends access codes at day 7.
Block 2 hours 15 for the afternoon, not two: the route runs 120 minutes including the briefing, plus a quarter of an hour to gather everyone at the finish.
Write the team line-ups yourself the night before, six players maximum, mixing the departments.
You have the date, the room and your headcount. What is left is 14:00 to 16:15. Ask for a quick quote with your city and numbers.
Frequently asked questions
A day, sometimes two, when a team works somewhere other than its usual office. The programme normally mixes one broadcast session, some small-group work and a shared informal moment. What separates it from a long meeting is the location and the shared meal.
