The whole idea of a unique off-site is breaking free from meeting monotony. But there can be a party pooper—the employee who rolls their eyes at group trivia or a free throw competition and threatens to bring down the mood for the entire team.

“People are more mindful about how valuable their time is now,” says Ashley Mansy, founder of Minneapolis-based Poppati Events. “Attendees just want to feel like they got a return on their investment of their time, but also of the experience in itself.” The latter should also be the company’s goal, she adds.

So Mansy starts off every client meeting with a “discovery session” to curate custom experiences and environments. Her first question: What do you want your attendees to walk away feeling at the end of the event? This sets the stage for the event; Mansy likes to work backward from there.

Then she asks who will attend. “A group of architects versus a group of accountants versus a group of pilots—they’re all going to be very different,” she says. “And is it the general company attending or is it just board members? All of that matters so much.”

“Attendees just want to feel like they got a return on their investment of their time, but also of the experience in itself.”

—Ashley Mansy, founder of Minneapolis-based Poppati Events

From there, she dives into the personality types of the attendees. Are there more introverts than extroverts? Do they tend to be foodies? Do they travel a lot for their job? Are they family-oriented? While there’s certainly diversity to some degree, there are often common interests because “they’re wired to be a certain way when they have an interest in the job they’re doing.”

“It just takes a little bit more digging, asking intentional questions, and doing my own research on the side to just give me the data and the leg up to propose ideas that would actually excite the attendees,” says Mansy.

“An opportunity to have meaningful networking, conversations, and connections is not just being stuck in a ballroom all day,” she says. “If attendees feel like they’re heard, taken care of, and valued at an event, along with doing a couple of intentional things just to make it a unique and fun experience, it goes such a long way.”