Dinner Party Icebreaker Ideas

Play some games that get dinner party guests smiling.

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When you host a dinner party that includes guests who might not know each other, plan to have at least one icebreaker game at the beginning of the party. These short games encourage guests to mingle or get to know each other better. Successful icebreakers help guests relax and encourage good conversation at the dinner table.

Related Searches: "Who Am I?" Games

Some icebreaker games assign guests to recognizable people or characters and require them to figure out who they are. When playing these games, choose celebrities or figures that everybody will know and recognize. Examples include the president or very prominent politicians, longstanding star actors, classic fictional characters and characters from very popular television shows. For one type of icebreaker, put a sticker on each guest's back that has a name on it. Each time the guest talks to someone at the party, he can ask that person a question to help discover what name is on his back. In another icebreaker, have a volunteer briefly leave the room while everyone else decides on a famous person. When the volunteer returns, everyone else pretends the volunteer is that famous person and asks questions as if they were interviewing that person. The volunteer makes up answers and uses information in the questions and the other guests' reactions to his answers to figure out what famous person he is supposed to be.

Self-Disclosure Games

Games that require guests to disclose information about themselves can make for interesting conversation later as guests ask each other about facts that came up in the game. Choose icebreakers that require guests to reveal unusual things about themselves. One game, called "Never Have I Ever," has guests sitting in a circle of chairs with one guest standing in the center with no chair. After the guest in the center names something he has never done, anyone who has done that thing must stand up and find a new chair, and the person in the middle must try to sit down in an empty chair. The guest who ends up in the middle makes the next statement. Another game, called "Two Truths and a Lie," works well at the dinner table. Each guest states three facts about himself, but the catch is that only two of them are true, and the third is a plausible lie. Other guests have to vote on which is the lie.

Worksheet Games

If your dinner party includes a cocktail hour of mingling before the dinner, give guests a worksheet-based game to fill out during the cocktail hour. One type of worksheet lists unusual characteristics or accomplishments, such as being an only child or having traveled to at least four continents. Guests must try to fill in their worksheets with names of people who fulfill those. Another type of worksheet asks broader questions, such as how many people in attendance have a vegetable garden or how many people work within a five-minute drive of their home.

Other Icebreakers

Use just about any short game as an icebreaker. The goal is for guests to get to know something about each other. For example, at a large dinner party, divide guests into groups of at least four people and have them arrange themselves in a line based on different characteristics. You might ask them to arrange by height, by the age of their oldest parent, by birth location from east to west, by high school graduation date or by the number of items they are wearing. If you need to introduce each other while you are seated at a table, play a memory game where each guest says his name and then something he likes that starts with the same letter. Each following guest must repeat all previous guests before adding his own name and thing he likes.

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