Event tips

1. Meeting Point & Communication

• Meeting points must be very clear (e.g. Eleftherias Square → below Eleftherias Square).

• Always send an exact location pin or photo of the meeting point once you arrive.

• Confirm the venue early and send a reminder one week before the event.
  
  

2. Event Description & Promotion

• Descriptions should be short, clear, and straight to the point.

• Do not use AI for writing descriptions. or if you do, use it correctly!

• Always follow the official description structure/template: <<link>>

• If the venue offers ESNcard discounts, clearly promote this.

• Remember: bars host our events, but they also expect consumption.
  
  

3. Social Engagement

• Actively socialize with Erasmus students during the event.

• Avoid staying only with your close friends — inclusion is key.
  
  

4. Games, Rewards & Motivation

• Competitive events or games should include small rewards.

• Rewards can include:

  • ESN merchandise

  • Free entrance to another event

  • Drinks from the bar

  • Small random items (e.g. from Jumbo or a supermarket)
    
    

5. Purchases & Logistics

• If buying from a supermarket, choose cheaper supermarkets or look for the best offers.

• If buying something online, place the order at least 21 days in advance.

6. Suggested Bars / Venues

• Kafeneio 11

• Ermou Rock Bar (261)

• Ermou Dixoro (271)

• Palaia Pineza
  
  

7. Templates

• Use official form and description templates when available.

City tour:

• Route and information we used to do, but feel free to adjust it or make your own!

• It might be 20 people or 100 people but we should be prepared.

• Speak loud and clear

• Use simple words as some of the Erasmus might not understand everything

• don’t read the information directly as it’s written (AI, Encyclopedia etc)

• Your tour should include fun jokes or fun facts to keep them engaged. You can even make questions to the audience.

Beach days:

• Bring snacks, the ice bucket with ice and some drinks like lemonade squash to offer them

• Bring beach games such as balls or card games and engage with them.

• If it’s a quiet beach, bring the speaker to add some music.

• Choose clean and nice beaches which are accessible by bus and also share the suggested bus routes with them.

Pic Nic:

• Find an activity to accompany a picnic – it can be traditional games, or just games / board games or healthy picnic or drinking games, Flunkyball, or meeting activities etc.

• Always bring enough snacks and drinks for everyone. You can buy traditional things from bakeries (savories, hallumi pies, purekia, koupes… ) or snacks from supermarket (croissants, crisps, popcorn). And as for drinks bring the ice bucket with lemonade or rose squash, juices, waters, ice.

• Don’t forget the table for the food/drinks and a speaker for music!

• Bing some blankets/mats and remind the participants to bring their own.

• Suggested places: Nicosia municipality garden, dog’s park, akadimias park, athalassas park, acropolis park.

Human Bingo:

• You should prepare bingo cards (5x5 or 4x4 boxes) where each box has a “Find a person who…” phrase. Keep them fun and random or unexpected.

• First person or first three people completing the bingo can win a reward

• You will need to print those cards and give them also a pen to mark the names of the people who they found

• Ideas from older bingo cards: << links >>

Games night:

• We have some board games as a section, but you can always collaborate with the Board Games Club of University of Cyprus. If you need a game that we don’t have ask the treasurer maybe they can buy it.

• If it’s not a bar/café, think about including some juices or waters and small snacks (popcorn, crisps, nuts).

Karaoke Night:

• We started a collaboration with VOX club where the set-up is ready and we have a discount as well. You only need to promote your event and people to go there. It usually operates as one-drink-one-song.

• However we have the equipment to do it on our own – we have projector, micrphpones – and we can find a bar which has space and music controller to connect our computer and play youtube karaoke songs.

  • You can use an online form to collect song requests

Speed friending:

• Come up with 10-20 questions which will be printed and put in front of them. Add some get-to-know questions but also some fun ones. << link to previous materials>>

• Two rows of chairs facing each other. One should be stable, and the other one should rotate one seat each time.

Pub Crawl:

• Come up with 20+ challenges and each challenge should have points based on difficulty. Challenges should be fun and creative. Don’t use the same every time and try to include drinks so the bars have consumption as well.

• Teams of 10 people is good along with a coordinator ESNer who will keep track the points.

• Find ideally three bars and stay 30 minutes to each of them and try to arrange discounts for the drinks if we don’t have an ESNcard discount yet.

• And find another bus (fourth) which will be the final stop where everyone will meet there and continue a small party and announce the winners.

Traditional Tavern night:

• Ideally on the welcome months

• Find a tavern with a good discount for Meze / platters to share. Ask for budget or from the store if they can provide free shots in the end of the night.

• Promote it early

• If the tavern includes music, it’s nice to dance and show them as well

• Suggested places: Kipos chrysaliniotisas, fisa masa, annama

Beer pong:

• Define the rules and share them with the Erasmus from the beginning

• Find deals with bars for jar of beers and serve to Erasmus à based on the price of the jar you will adjust the participation fee (usually 3 eur per person is good).

• You will need rectangular tables (if the venue doesn’t have), balls, cups for the game, cups to drink from.

• On the google forms include the team name

Movie nights:

• You can collaborate with the UCY cine club OR you can do it on your own as well!

• We have screen and portable projector so you can use them!

• Send a poll to vote for the movie they want to see and download the movie and subtitles from before

• Bring enough snacks and drinks for everyone (based on the poll’s votes)

• Suggested places: ucy kalipoleos / ucy / univeristiies classes / bars with space (ermou 261, yfantourgio)

Greek lessons:

• Prepare and print material with usual phrases and Greek essentials to give to them. It’s nice to give a free gift like ESN pens if we ever make so they can take notes.

• <<link to material usual phrases>>

• Someone needs to be the teacher or ideally everyone should take some part of the Greek lessons and present it (e.g., alphabet, every day phrases, etc.)

Tandem:

• Split them in pairs with different nationalities and let them teach their language to each other

• You can give them phrases to translate, categories, or topics to discuss as well

Match-up:

• Give everyone a piece of paper to write three fun facts about them (or two truths and one lie). Put the papers in a box and shuffle them. Then everyone pics a random paper and has to talk with each other to find who wrote it. Then they can put it back and take another paper.

• Give everyone a character from the same movie and let them find their matches. When they do, you can give them questions to discuss to get to know each other. Then you can shuffle them again and give them out randomly. Each round can have different questions. For example, the first round can have basic get-to-know questions, the second round can have deeper questions with discussions, the third more personal or funny questions etc or even challenges to do.

• You can give out play-cards, and each person should have a match. The couples should get to know each other and then the instructor can tell them to find and meet other couples (e.g., the couple with the Aces should meet the couple with the Twos etc.)  Again, they can have a mix of questions and challenges.

• There are many ways you can do a match-up – so feel free to improvise.

International Dinner:

• You can send a form to the Erasmus with their country and what food they will bring (optional). Don’t forget to add a comments section to let you know if they will need something specific (e.g., big knife).

• Make sure you have forks, spoons, knives and tissues for everyone and bigger cutlery for serving if needed.

• Also bring some cups since sometimes there might be soup or drinks.

• If the event takes places at a bar, mention that bring their own drinks are not allowed.

• You can always arrange some decoration or adjust the food based on a theme (e.g., Christmas, Easter etc.)

Arts & Crafts:

• Think of a theme and focus on that (e.g., masks for carnival or Halloween, tote bags, jewellery, Christmas ornaments, magnet-canvas etc...)

• Prepare early and order any materials you might need and try to order them online or wherever is cheaper as a batch. Some materials could be paints, brushes, beads, jewellery tools, tote bags, masks, canvas etc.

• You can also collaborate with universities’ Arts club.

• Bring some snacks or drinks if it’s within the budget (e.g., lemonade, crisps,...)

Scavenger Hunt:

• Each team should have at least one ESNer as an instructor. The instructor should have the clues and give one each time they get to the right place. All the teams start from the same meeting point (e.g., eleftherias square) and finish on another one (usually a bar to hang out and chill).

• You should think of the route that each team will follow Ideally five to six locations are enough for each route. You can find 15 locations and create routes by reordering the locations.  But make sure that the routes are equal in walking distance!
  Example of a route A:  eletherias square à Humanitarian Monument à Cyprus Museum à ... à Halara cafe
  Example of a route B: eletherias square à Cyprus Museum à Humanitarian Monument à... à Halara cafe

• You should also think of fun clues for each destination. The clues can be anything from a text riddle, images, brain puzzle, letter reorder, capital letters in a text etc..
  Example of clue: “A line that split, now joins - walk where borders blur” which leads to Humanitarian Monument

• We have some ready routes and clues we used to use – so feel free to reuse them.

• The first team usually wins an award (ESN merch or drinks etc).

• FYI: we also have a scavenger hunt application if you don’t want to participate in the scavenger hunt, but that needs to be setup 3 days before the event – you will need to go and stick stickers around the city.

Other event ideas:

• Bowling

• Escape Room 

• Murder Mystery

• Hot Streaks - Rouk Zouk

• Day tours in other cities (Larnaca tour, Limassol tour)

• Museum Crawl

• Thrift Crawl (you can hide something in a shop and whoever finds it win that item or ESN merch)

• Sign Language classes

• Self defence classes 

• Beach clean-up 

• Barbeque trip 

• Secret location event  

• Planetarium visit

• Arc 

• Ungravity Climbing