Team building looks different in 2026 than it did even a few years ago. With hybrid schedules now standard and more companies bringing people back into the office for at least part of the week, the in-person moments teams do get together have to count. A generic conference-room icebreaker doesn’t cut it anymore — people want experiences that feel genuine, give everyone something to talk about afterward, and don’t require a marketing department to pull off.
That’s exactly why paint and sip events have become one of our most-requested corporate team building activities. No artistic skill required, it works for groups of five or five hundred, and it translates just as well over video call as it does in a shared room. But like any team event, it goes more smoothly with a plan. Here’s how to build one, step by step.
Step 1: Start With Your Goal, Not the Activity
Before you book anything, get clear on why you’re doing this. Are you trying to rebuild connection after a stretch of remote work? Celebrate a milestone? Give a newly hybrid team a reason to actually be in the same room? Get ahead of burnout before it turns into a retention problem?
Your goal shapes everything downstream — the format, the guest list, even the tone of the event. If morale or retention is the driving concern, it’s worth reading our breakdown of how team building activities affect employee retention, since the connection between the two is more direct than most people expect.
Step 2: Decide Between Virtual, In-Person, or Hybrid
This is usually the first real fork in the road, and there’s no universally right answer — it depends on where your team actually is.
Fully remote or spread across time zones? A virtual paint night lets everyone log in from wherever they are, with a kit mailed ahead of time and a live instructor guiding the group in real time. If you want to see exactly what that looks like before you book, we’ve laid out how a virtual paint class actually works, start to finish.
Back in the office, even part-time? In-person sessions tend to spark more spontaneous conversation and are worth the extra coordination when your team can gather in one room. Either way, the core activity — guided painting with a live instructor — stays the same; only the delivery changes.
Step 3: Set a Realistic Budget
Team building doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective. Some of our highest-rated events cost less than $60 per person. If budget is a real constraint — and for most teams, it is — start with our roundup of team building events under $60 per person for a sense of what’s realistic at different price points, from self-led kits to fully guided sessions.
A useful rule of thumb: budget less per person for larger groups and a bit more for smaller, higher-stakes gatherings like a leadership offsite. Either way, get a quote before you commit to a headcount — pricing scales with group size, and it’s easier to adjust a number up than to walk back a promise to the team.
Step 4: Choose the Right Format for Your Team
Not every paint and sip event needs a live instructor guiding the whole group in real time. Depending on your team’s schedule and how hands-on you want the experience to be, you’ve got two main formats to choose from.
Guided, live-instructor sessions work best for structured team events — everyone paints the same piece together, on a set schedule, with real-time guidance. This is the format behind most of our virtual and in-person team classes.
Self-led kits give people more flexibility to paint on their own schedule, which works well for distributed teams across time zones or for a lower-pressure, optional activity. We cover exactly what’s included and how to order supplies for a group in our paint and sip supplies FAQ, including options for self-led kits with step-by-step instructions.
Step 5: Handle the Logistics
A few practical details tend to make or break a corporate paint and sip event:
Group size. Let us know your headcount early — it affects instructor staffing and kit shipping timelines, especially for larger groups.
Shipping. If you’re running a virtual event or sending self-led kits, build in extra lead time for supplies to ship, particularly if your team is spread across multiple states.
Timing. Shorter sessions tend to outperform longer ones for engagement — a 60 to 90 minute painting session usually hits the sweet spot between immersive and exhausting.
Special occasions. Running the event around a birthday, work anniversary, or holiday? We have occasion-specific formats too, including a dedicated virtual birthday paint party, if that fits the context.
A Few Common Team Building Mistakes to Avoid
Even well-intentioned team events fall flat sometimes. A few patterns we see often:
Making it mandatory without flexibility. People engage more when they have some choice in format — offering both a live guided option and a self-led kit respects different comfort levels and schedules.
Skipping the goal-setting step. An event planned around “we should probably do something” rarely lands as well as one planned around a specific outcome, whether that’s celebrating a launch or easing a stretch of high-pressure deadlines.
Underestimating logistics for remote teams. Shipping supplies to five different states takes more lead time than handing out kits in one office — plan accordingly, especially around holidays, when carriers slow down.
None of these are hard to avoid once you know to look for them, and they’re usually the difference between an event people mention months later and one they forget by Friday.
Step 6: Book and Follow Up
Once you’ve nailed down your goal, format, and budget, reach out for a quote and available dates — team events tend to book up fastest around holidays and end of quarter, so it’s worth planning a few weeks ahead where you can.
After the event, the follow-up matters almost as much as the event itself. Share the finished paintings in a team channel, ask for quick feedback, and if retention or connection was the underlying goal, revisit it in a month. That’s usually when you can tell whether the investment paid off.
Ready to Plan Your Team's Event?
Whether you’re organizing a fully remote paint night, an in-person office gathering, or something in between, we can help put together an event that fits your team, budget, and timeline. Take a look at our team building event options or get in touch for a quote and we’ll walk you through available dates and formats.