10 Grandiose Virtual New Year’s Eve Party Ideas to Welcome The New Year

What a year it has been! The impact of Covid-19 on homes and offices around the world lingers, with more than half of the global workforce adapting to a work-from-home forever schedule. The distraction we all need right now is planning a virtual New year Eve’s party!

Most parties we’ve celebrated from 2020 to the present have been virtual. The upside to this is that staff from every office can participate and be included without them needing to fly out!

Virtual New year’s eve is going to be just as fun, so let’s get right to it! 

Read more: 30 And Above Virtual Holiday Party Ideas That Your Remote Teams Will Love

1. 1. What is a Virtual New Year’s Eve Party?
2. 2. Virtual New Year Eve 2021 Games
   1. 2.1 2021 new year virtual trivia
   2. 2.2 Two resolutions and a lie
   3. 2.3 Virtual movie pictionary
   4. 2.4 Sham-pagne (champagne facts or fiction guessing game)
   5. 2.5 When the clock strikes 12
   6. 2.6 Virtual New Year Bingo
   7. 2.7 Office SlideShow Contest
   8. 2.8 Jackbox games
   9. 2.8 My year in 1 sentence
   10. 2.10 Minute to win it games
3. 3. FAQS
   1. 3.1 What do you do virtually on New Year's Eve?
   2. 3.2 How do you host a virtual New Year party?

1 What is a Virtual New Year’s Eve Party?

A virtual New year’s eve party is a bash thrown online via video conferencing tools like Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. It is celebrated on December 31st, one day before January 1st, which is regarded as the first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar.

Although some team-building activities may be modified to be executed online, there’s one major difference between virtual new year eve parties thrown offline and online. At the office level, it's more individualistic. One office may go all out, while another may opt for a more subdued or intimate event such as a casual team brunch. 

Online, such parties are more standardized, with everyone joining in on a unified scale of fun on a common meeting platform!

A Virtual New year’s eve bash follows the motto, “out with the old, in with the new”, signifying that a new year brings with it new hope and fresh resolve. You can check virtual new years eve party ideas online to make the beginning memorable.

2 Virtual New Year Eve 2021 Games

2.1 2021 new year virtual trivia

Test everyone’s GK with virtual trivia about New Year. The questions can include Times Square’s famous ball drop, which Parade has helpfully compiled. You can also check out Kidadl’s compilation of trivia questions.

You can also create your very own trivia on platforms like Typeform, OpinionStage or let’s roam. All you need to do is fill in some details based on which templates are generated.

2.2 Two resolutions and a lie

It's tradition to make resolutions as a type of goal-setting. But some of us are guilty of making resolutions that we don’t see through. Enter two resolutions and a lie! Everyone has to take turns telling what their resolutions are and slip in a lie. The rest have to guess the made-up resolution. Whoever gets the most guesses right about their coworker’s resolutions wins!

2.3 Virtual movie pictionary

Play Pictionary with movie titles instead of a random name generator! Here’s how:

1. Collect a bunch of new year eve related movie titles (PS: most of them will be feel-good movies!)
2. Send teams into breakout rooms.
3. When it's one team’s turn, send the chosen member the movie title to draw out for the opposing team.
4. Team members from each team go turn by turn to share their screen, featuring them drawing out the movie name on a digital whiteboard.
5. You can optionally set a buzzer for wrong guesses or take off a point.

Here are some movie titles specific to the theme from both Oprah and good housekeeping;

1. The Phantom Thread
2. About a Boy
3. About Time
4. Money Train
5. New Year’s Eve

2.4 Sham-pagne (champagne facts or fiction guessing game)

How well do you know this drink that’s famous for foaming out of its bottle spectacularly? Challenge your teams to guess which facts about Champagne are true or false. The credit for this game goes to Team Building, and the questions template can be accessed here.

2.5 When the clock strikes 12

Build up the anticipation with a good old-fashioned countdown and live to stream the ball drop at Times Square. A pre-recorded webcast of the 2021 edition is available, but if you and the team want to catch this historic event live this year, try one of the 23 events available on TheBallDrop.

2.6 Virtual New Year Bingo

Play bingo with the New year theme in mind. Create a template of questions related to the actions you or your coworkers are likely to have taken over the year.

Here are some starter questions

1. Seen 30 New years
2. Kissed someone at midnight
3. Got drunk at a New year's bash.
4. Celebrated a birthday coinciding with New year.
5. Resolved to shed a few pounds.
6. Regifted a gift. 

The first person to cross off more than 5 consecutive boxes wins!

2.7 Office SlideShow Contest

Bring out your team’s competitive side by throwing open the challenge of documenting office moments both before and after the move to the virtual office. The slideshow can feature pictures from team lunches or coffee breaks, stand-up meetings, or screenshots from escape game adventures- anything that captures golden moments!

2.8 Jackbox games

Jackbox games offer a variety of online board and card games, such as Fibbage and Quiplash. For groups of 3 to 8 players, a Joke boat is a very immersive and hilarious game where you have to entertain the audience with funny one-liners under the supervision of the host and EmCee, Cap’n Chuck Hull. 

Playing a game from Jackbox is straightforward. You’ll get a 4-digit login for the jackbox tv site that’ll admit you in and from where you’ll see the games you’re connected to.

2.9 My year in 1 sentence

This is sort of like the Thanksgiving virtual New year’s Eve edition. Initiate a conversation on what the year has been like and get everybody to sum it up in a sentence. This game tests how well team members can articulate their feelings when at work and what they have been grateful for, or look forward to in the future.

2.10 Minute to win it games

Want to play as many games as possible? Try a few minute-to-win-it games! 

The best part of it is that you can play it using props lying around your house. Here are some options for you to play at virtual new year’s eve;

1. Tic-tac-Stack

How to play:

1. Grab two bowls and set them next to each other. Empty tic tacs into one.
2. Players have to transfer tic-tacs from the full bowl to an empty bowl using a pair of tweezers.
3. The player who manages to transfer most of the tic-tacs in under 60 seconds wins.

2. Pin the Cotton nose

How to play

1. Take a few cotton balls and place it next to a tray carrying a dollop of vaseline/petroleum jelly.
2. Place a cardboard drawing of a face on the opposite wall, a few metres away from the contestants.
3. The participants have to dip the tip of their nose in the jelly and then onto the cotton ball to pin it on the drawing.
4. Whoever manages to cross over and affix the cotton nose on the correct spot on the hung-up drawing in under a minute wins!

3. Post its- Stickit

How to play

1. Collect a clean stack or wad of post-it notes.
2. When the timer starts, begin placing as many 'Post its' on your face, neck and ears as you can.
3. Stop the contestants when the timer buzzes and count the number of 'post its' every person has managed to stick on to their face. 
4. Whoever has the highest number of tiny notes on their face and neck wins the game.

3 FAQS

3.1 What do you do virtually on New Year's Eve?

These are some time-honored traditions of greeting the new year before January 1 -

1. Counting down from 10 and wishing everyone on the call a Happy New Year.
2. Play virtual Bingo or trivia hour.
3. Host a boozy happy hour with the drinks of your choice.
4. Show up to the call dressed in your finest.
5. Play charades, pictionary or mimes.

3.2 How do you host a virtual New Years party?

1. Decide on the virtual new year party duration

The length of your virtual New Year celebration depends on the type and number of activities you have planned. If everyone is up for it, you can have the virtual new years party towards 11 PM and then wind it up after the team does the countdown together. 1-1.5 hours should be sufficient time. 

2. Plan for enough games and activities

Make sure to break up games with icebreaker prompts and general conversations. Keep things interesting by turning even simple games into contests. If anyone wants to give a special performance, factor that in alongside the other planned activities.

3. Budget for food and drinks

Either ship a standard food and drinks package to each employee ahead of time or provide an expense allowance of a certain amount for them to get the snacks of their choice that’s closest to where they live. Everyone can break out their package once the call starts.

4. Share invites to the team

Design evites specifying when the party is. Throw in a few pun-ny sentences in your invitation to put a smile on the recipient’s face when they open their invite! Remind everyone to run a sound, video, and internet check before the virtual new year party starts to avoid last-minute delays.

5. Specify theme and dress code

Make the virtual New year’s Eve party even more fun with a theme everyone is on board with. They can decorate their personal space with balloons, flowers or candles to add a touch of elegance. Encourage people to show up to the call dressed in their best outfits!