Digital Scavenger Hunts to Get Attendees to Visit Sponsors

Sponsors show up expecting conversations. Attendees show up expecting content. Those two expectations rarely meet naturally — and the expo floor is usually where the gap is most obvious. Booths sit half-empty while attendees cluster in hallways or stick with people they already know.

The default solution — a sponsor map and a reminder to 'check out the exhibitors' — does not work. Attendees need a reason to visit, a prompt to start a conversation when they get there, and some kind of payoff for doing it. A digital scavenger hunt gives them all three.

A sponsor scavenger hunt works by embedding sponsor booths into a game attendees are already playing. Instead of hoping someone wanders over, sponsors become checkpoints — each one tied to a specific prompt that gives the attendee a reason to show up and something to say when they get there.

The prompt does the heavy lifting. Rather than an attendee approaching a booth with no context and immediately feeling like they are about to be sold to, they arrive with a specific question or task. That reframe changes the entire dynamic of the interaction — for both sides.

• What changes when you run it well:
• • Attendees visit booths with intent rather than obligation.
  • Sponsors have a natural conversation opener built into the interaction.
  • The expo floor has energy instead of dead zones.
  • Both sides leave with something — the attendee completes a challenge, the sponsor has a genuine conversation.

Jam Bingo is a digital human bingo tool designed to help increase engagement with sponsors and booths.

The way it works is simple: you build a custom bingo card, load it with prompts — some tied to sponsor booths, some social — and attendees access their card by scanning a QR code on their phone

What makes it work well for sponsor integrations in particular:

• Sponsors are checkpoints, not interruptions.
• • Each sponsor booth gets a specific prompt.
  • The prompt primes the conversation so sponsors spend less time on cold introductions and more time on the actual discussion.

The temptation is to make the scavenger hunt elaborate. Resist it. The more steps, the more friction, and the more likely attendees drop off before completing it. A clean, well-prompted hunt with five to ten stops and a single completion prize will outperform a complicated multi-stage game every time.

• Step 1 — Brief your sponsors before the event.
• • Tell them a scavenger hunt is happening and that their booth is a checkpoint.
  • Ask each sponsor to designate one person whose job during the hunt is to handle attendee check-ins — not someone also managing demos or other conversations.
• Step 2 — Write prompts that start real conversations.
• • Avoid prompts that can be answered by reading a banner — 'find out what X company does' sends people to the booth and straight back out.
  • The best prompts require a short exchange: 'Ask a sponsor what problem they solve that most people do not realize they have.'
  • Mix sponsor prompts with one or two social prompts so the hunt feels like an event activity, not a sales tour.
• Step 3 — Set a clear time window and completion prize.
• • A two to three hour window works well for a half-day event — long enough to complete without pressure, short enough to create urgency.
  • The prize does not need to be expensive. A free ticket to your next event, a gift card, or early access to session recordings works fine.
  • Announce the prize publicly at the opening so attendees know it exists before they start.
• Step 4 — Display the QR Code.
• • A scavenger hunt that is mentioned once at check-in and never referenced again will have low completion rates.
  • Kick it off from the stage or main room with a 60-second explanation and a visible start signal.
  • Have staff circulating during the first 20 minutes to nudge attendees who have not started yet.

A good sponsor prompt sends an attendee to a booth with a specific question and leaves the sponsor with an easy way to start a genuine conversation. Here are prompts you can use or adapt:

• Conversation-starting prompts:
• • Visit this booth and ask what problem their product solves that most people do not realize they have.
  • Ask the sponsor what kind of company gets the most value from what they offer.
  • Find out one thing their customers consistently say after using the product for the first time.
  • Ask what makes them different from the other options in their category.
  • Find out what challenge they are most focused on solving this year.
• Discovery prompts:
• • Get a two-minute demo and identify one feature you did not expect.
  • Ask the sponsor to walk you through their most common use case.
  • Find out which industries they work with most and whether yours is one of them.
  • Ask what a company typically looks like before they become a customer.
  • Learn one surprising fact about the company that is not on their website.
• Lighter prompts to balance the card:
• • Find someone at this booth who has been with the company for more than five years.
  • Ask the team what they are most excited about heading into the rest of the year.
  • Find out what the sponsor team does to unwind after a long event day.

Paper stamp cards have been used at trade shows for decades and they are not broken. If your event is small and your sponsors are not asking for engagement metrics, paper is perfectly fine. But for anything larger, or any event where you need to show sponsors measurable ROI, digital is the better tool.

• What digital gives you that paper cannot:
• • Real-time visibility into which booths are being visited and which are being skipped.
  • Completion data you can share with sponsors after the event — how many attendees visited, how long they stayed, which prompts were completed.
  • No printing, no distribution, no collecting cards at the end.
  • The ability to update prompts mid-event if something is not working.
  • A cleaner attendee experience — one QR code scan at the door and everything is on their phone.

The clearest benefit for sponsors is not foot traffic — it is the quality of the conversations that come from it. An attendee who arrives with a specific question is a fundamentally different interaction than one who drifts over with no context. The prompt primes them to listen, and the sponsor's answer is positioned as information rather than a pitch.

• What sponsors consistently report when the hunt is run well:
• • Conversations start faster because the attendee already has a question in hand.
  • Brand recall is stronger because the interaction involved doing something, not just seeing something.
  • The booth feels less like a waiting game and more like an active part of the event.
  • Post-event, they have concrete engagement data to justify renewing their sponsorship.

Running a sponsor scavenger hunt makes your job as a host easier in one very specific way: you stop having to hope sponsors feel valued and start being able to show them they were. Post-event, you have data — which booths were visited, how many completions happened, how attendees rated the activity — and data is what makes sponsor renewal conversations straightforward.

• The secondary benefits for hosts:
• • The expo floor has visible energy, which improves the overall atmosphere of the event.
  • Attendees spend more time on the floor and less time clustered in hallways.
  • The activity gives your emcee or host something concrete to reference and update the room on throughout the event.
  • You build a reusable format — once you have run a sponsor scavenger hunt once and worked out the structure, it gets easier and better every time.

A sponsor scavenger hunt that flops usually does so for one of a small number of reasons — and almost all of them are avoidable if you plan for them in advance.

• Sponsors were not briefed properly.
• • If a sponsor does not know the hunt is happening or does not know what prompt attendees will ask, the interaction falls apart at the booth.
  • Send sponsors the exact prompt wording at least a week before the event and ask them to confirm they have a prepared response.
• The prompts were too easy or too salesy.
• • Prompts that can be answered by reading a banner ('find out what X company does') send attendees to the booth and straight back out without a real conversation.
  • Prompts that feel like thinly veiled sales pitches ('get a demo and sign up for a free trial') make attendees feel like they are being funneled, not engaged.
  • The sweet spot is a question that requires a short genuine exchange and leaves the attendee with something useful.
• The launch was quiet.
• • A scavenger hunt mentioned once at check-in will be forgotten within 20 minutes.
  • Kick it off from the stage, reference it during breaks, and have staff actively pointing people toward it throughout the day.