Apartment buildings rely on engagement to build communities, and a great way to do that is through resident events. This blog post will go through the February resident event ideas & engagement Ideas that will boost resident engagement and happiness.
Behind every great retention rate is a great community. Communities, however, are not built on their own. A group of people (or residents) needs help connecting and trusting each other. At Flamingo, we believe that the cornerstone of resident engagement is resident events. That’s because resident events make people get together, have fun and learn new things. The trick here is organizing events that reach the level of participation we’re looking for. Residents have to show up, have a great attitude, take pictures and maybe even leave a positive review on your property’s site. Let’s dive into the top February Resident Event Ideas you need to try!
Pizza nights and Breakfasts Grab n’ Go are good, but they’re not enough to get the level of engagement you’re after. Residents’ expectations are increasing, and pleasing them is getting harder. So we decided to put together a list of unique resident event ideas for February that will help you get tons of RSVPs from very excited residents. Happy residents, happy life.
Resident Event Ideas for February
1. Super Bowl Watch Party
With February comes “Da Big Game” and no matter if your city’s team made it there, everyone will watch it. Some might be more interested in the commercials or the half-time show, but residents will still be very interested in attending this get-together. You can do this event outdoors (COVID-friendly), and it can be as casual or as elevated as your budget allows. Put up a giant outdoor screen, decorations, set up a betting pool, or you can make it a potluck party. You can even make it a festival and invite food trucks. If you do, make sure you invite the whole neighborhood. This could help out your leasing teams, so make sure to partner with them.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600.
2. Homemade Pizza Class
This hands-on, fun class to learn how to cook your own pizza is extra popular in the winter because let’s face it, we want yummy (and dare I say, greasy?) food when it’s cold outside.
A big part of the fun in this resident event is that it’s family-friendly. Regularly, resident events are very much focused on an older demographic. That leaves families having to go outside of their homes to find things to do with their kids. If you want to win at resident engagement, you have to make sure you have a healthy balance of adult and family-friendly events.
Extra points go to this event because it can easily be turned into a virtual resident event!
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600.
3. Pancake Party
Who doesn’t love pancakes? This resident event idea is cheap, fun, and delicious! We can guarantee that a Pancake Party is a quick hit to start off your February resident events the best way. February 5th is National Nutella Day so go all-in with your Nutella pancakes. Again, this event is family-friendly, but if you want to kick it up a notch, pair it up with Mimosas or Bloody Mary for the adults. This will not only make it more fun, but even more Instargrammable (I just that word up, I stand by it). You’ll get plenty of mentions and tags, and if you’re using an app like Flamingo’s Resident Engagement App, all the pics that residents submit are free to use by your marketing team!
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $500.
4. Bloody Mary Open Bar
This breakfast-type resident event will have adults extra happy to wake up. As mentioned before, you can even combine it with the Pancake Party! We love this event idea because it’s different from your typical Last Friday’s or cocktail-making class. It’s perfect for weekends (when residents have a higher chance of being hungover), and it has a cool factor that makes people want to be a part of it.
If you’re used to having property tours during the weekends, this could be a great event to have for the whole month so that you can take prospects for a drink and get them relaxed before their tour.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600.
5. Wine & Cheese Tasting
A Wine & Cheese Tasting is a great Valentine’s Day event option. If you are interested in making it a Valentine’s Day-themed event, you can promote it for couples. Otherwise, a regular wine & cheese tasting is excellent because it is relaxing and it’s educational. Residents love learning new things, and pairing delicious cheese with amazing wine is a skill-set they’ll want to add to their repertoire.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600.
6. Chili Cook-Off Class
Events that tap into the competitive side of residents are pretty much always a good idea. Healthy competition builds community and makes people interact more with one another. For this event, you can hire a chef who’ll make sure to bring all the necessary ingredients; he’ll do a cooking demo and then it’s off to the races! One fun thing you can try out is pairing this event with the Super Bowl Watch Party. Nothing says chili like Football. Also! February 27th is National Chili Day. If that doesn’t get you in a chili mood, nothing ever will.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $550.
7. Casino Night
This is definitely in the bigger, more produced events scale. The fun part about this event is that you can do it Vegas or Montecarlo-themed and have residents dress up. You can get fancy cater and really go all in with your casino night. These events are great to do once a quarter because they get higher expectations and outstanding participation. Residents love that they can dress up and have a “night out” without actually having to go out.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $4,500.
8. Valentine’s Day Cocktails
Events with mixologists are always super popular. This event adds a twist to a regular mixology class and invites residents to learn how to prepare romantic drinks. Many of your residents will be looking for plans or fun things to do in Valentine’s Day; so offering them an option that’s at home, where they can learn something new and have drinks at the same time, will go a long way.
This is also an easy event to do in a virtual format. You can either provide the ingredients or send residents the list of ingredients beforehand to get it themselves. It depends on your budget, so get creative!
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600
9. Savory Soups
For places like Chicago (where we’re based) where it’s freezing during the winter, classes to learn how to cook warm food are a great idea. A friendly savory soup class taught by a professional chef is a very useful event. These events add a nice mix to your resident engagement because you show that it’s not always about a party and small talk. Residents can learn something together!
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600
10. Wine & Paint
We love the fact that this can also be a virtual event. Wine & Paint events are great because they’re flexible. You can do monthly themes (Valentine’s or winter landscapes would make a ton of sense for February). If you do decide to organize this event monthly or even quarterly, you do an art exhibition at the end of the year and give your residents the chance to showcase their year-long work!
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $700
11. Murder Mystery
A Murder Mystery is so much fun because it allows residents to work together to solve a crime. You can also pair this with a nice dinner or encourage your residents to dress up in costumes. Even though this event might be small (it typically accommodates up to 20-25 people), what’s great about it is that it’s a bit more intimate and people can really talk to each other and get to know each other. Making residents work together is a very easy way to establish connections and build a stronger community.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $700
12. Harry Potter Trivia
Trivia Nights never get old! What we love about this event is the fact that it’s so flexible. You can do trivia on any trending topic or an old-time classic and people will remain interested and participative. We recommend doing weekly or monthly trivia nights. We’ve seen communities grow and get closer because people look forward to the event, and they get to know new people. A Harry Potter trivia right now makes sense since the 20 year reunion just streamed and fans remain super excited!
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $450
13. Wine & Chocolate Tasting
My favorite Valentine’s Day event! Invite your couple residents and organize an extra romantic tasting with decorations and maybe even pair it with a fancy dinner. Wine and chocolate make for the perfect Valentine’s Day pairing because it as romantic as it is delicious.
If you’re not really into Valentine’s Day idea, worry not. These tastings are super popular throughout the year, and if you execute your marketing the right way, you could get over 100 residents signing up.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600
14. Single’s Mingle
This might seem controversial. You don’t want to break up and have to see your ex around your building, right? However, residents keep asking for these types of events! So who are we to stand in the way of love?
In all seriousness, you can market this event as you please, maybe making it more of a Community Mingle, where people wear name tags so that everyone can get into easy conversations all around. This doesn’t have to be a full-on Speed Dating event, it can be super relaxed and casual and a nice get-together with the single people in the property. I’ll leave it up to you.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $600
15. Romantic Outdoor Movie
What’s not to like about this resident event? It’s outdoors (COVID-friendly), fits tons of people, fun, and never gets old. Since February is the most romantic month of the year, you can go for a romantic comedy (we recommend it, people love themes). You can decorate the space, provide popcorn, candy or even wine and beer to make it more adult-friendly. You can get people excited and participating by sending out a survey beforehand and having residents vote on their choice for the movie! Works every time.
Available at getflamingo.com/resident-events starting at $800
Resident Engagement Ideas for February
Resident events are great for resident engagement, but they’re not the only way to create an engaged community. Here are a few tips and ideas other than events for resident engagement.
– Fitness Challenge
With the start of every year, comes new fitness and wellness goals. Help your residents achieve their goals by creating a community-wide fitness challenge. A fun thing you can try out is dividing your property by groups (floors 0-10, 11-20, etc) and have them compete against each other for rewards.
Something like this could do wonders for your resident engagement because residents have to be consistent and motivate each other out. Suppose you have a solution like Flamingo’s On-Demand Fitness. In that case, you could have rankings and boards that automatically update and residents can check in and keep track of their workouts or even organize group workouts. If you don’t have a system in place, you could make it as simple as residents having to send in pictures of their daily work outs or keeping track of the residents who sign up to your fitness classes at the yoga room.
You could even make it as easy as promoting the fact that you’ll reimburse residents who sign up to your local 5K race and organize training groups. It’s about showing your residents that you care and that you want to help them. People like to feel understood and these details will go a long way in resident retention and happiness.
– Garage Sale
Another commonality of starting out the year is getting rid of unnecessary things! Cleansing! Selling furniture is by far the most common post we see residents post on our Resident Engagement App. It makes sense because neither party has to travel long distances and you’re more likely to trust that people are giving a fair price. This is super simple to put together. Just assign a dedicated space and let promote it as a very DIY activity. Residents will engage with each other and have a great time. You can even make it once or twice a year.
– Scrabble Tournament
Everyone loves board games! This is a super simple activity that promotes community and engagement quite nicely. People are looking for ways to interact with their neighbors, and a Scrabble or any board-game tournament is a great way to make this happen. We recommend adding different categories so that kids can also participate and the whole family can have lots of fun.
