City Scavenger Hunts for Corporate Groups

Your city as the gameboard. Two hours of exploration, challenges, and team play that starts and ends wherever you want.

Corporate team taking a group selfie during a downtown city scavenger hunt.

Quick Answer

City scavenger hunts work when you have the proximity or the flexible schedule to get teams out and explore somewhere together. Social Scavenger runs them in cities and towns worldwide, with thousands of existing game zones already built and the team happy to build a custom one wherever you are. The default game is Ultimate City Hunt (about two hours, ~1 sq mile zone, teams of four to six). Story-based games (Who Kidnapped the Boss?, Choose Wisely, Great Scott!) also run in the same city zones if you want more theme. Start and end at your hotel, office, or conference center. Full game detail and booking live on socialscavenger.com.

What this is

A city scavenger hunt turns the few blocks around your venue into a team game. Teams of four to six get the Social Scavenger app on one device, pick a path through 25 to 50 challenges (photos, videos, puzzles, trivia, GPS stops), and race a live leaderboard for about two hours. They wrap up back at a meetup spot you pick: the hotel bar, a restaurant, the conference room, wherever.

Two birds with one stone. People are already somewhere interesting for the conference or retreat. A city hunt gets them out exploring it together instead of staring at slides or each other across a dinner table.

Team of colleagues gathered around a phone solving a challenge on a city sidewalk.

Why teams pick this format

A few reasons city hunts come up in planning conversations.

  • The location is part of the event. If the group flew to Nashville, San Diego, or Lisbon, getting out into that city is half the point. A hunt makes the exploration the activity rather than a side errand.
  • It is the opposite of a conference room. After two days of sessions, putting people outside, in fresh air, with a game in their hands resets the energy. Phones are on for the game, not for email.
  • Mixed groups bond fast. Departments that do not normally work together end up on the same team trying to solve a puzzle in front of a fountain. The shared photo of that moment is what people talk about back at the office.
  • The format works anywhere. Social Scavenger has thousands of existing game zones across major cities and smaller towns. If there is not already a zone where you are, the team will happily build a custom one.

The default game: Ultimate City Hunt

If you are not sure which game to pick, Ultimate City Hunt is the answer. It is the most-played city game and works for any group, any city, any theme.

Overhead flat lay of a city map with route lines and a smartphone showing the Social Scavenger app.

What it is. About two hours. ~1 sq mile game zone. Teams of four to six. Twenty-five to fifty challenges across photo, video, GPS, trivia, AI photo transformations, and head-to-head VS missions. Live leaderboard. A wrap-up slideshow at the end and (in Premier+ tiers) a custom highlight video within 24 hours.

Why it is the default. It is flexible. The challenges are themed and customized to whatever city you are in. The game zone wraps around your start point. Teams pick their own path, so the group spreads out fast. It works for 20 people or 500.

Full Ultimate City Hunt details and booking on socialscavenger.com →

Other Social Scavenger games that play in a city

Same format, different stories. Pick one of these if you want more theme or more narrative.

How a city hunt actually runs

Start to finish.

  1. Step 1

    Pre-event

    Social Scavenger builds the game custom to your city and start and end points. You get a briefing pack with how to brief teams (it is easy) and what to expect.

  2. Step 2

    Day-of briefing

    Five to ten minutes. Done in your conference room, hotel meeting space, or wherever the group is gathering before play starts. One person per team downloads the Social Scavenger app and joins the private game. Video briefing covers how to win.

  3. Step 3

    Play

    Roughly two hours. Teams move through the game zone in any order. Live leaderboard, in-game messages from the events team (in Premier+ tiers), and a feed of every team's submissions so people can spy on the competition.

  4. Step 4

    Wrap-up

    Teams meet back at the agreed end point (a bar, restaurant, hotel lobby, conference room). Winners announced, slideshow plays, photos and videos shared. A custom highlight video lands within 24 hours in Premier+ tiers.

Multi-city play

If your team is spread across regions, the same game can run in multiple cities at once. Each city plays locally. Scoring and the final wrap-up come together centrally so you get regional winners plus an overall company winner. Common setup for distributed companies that want one shared experience without flying everyone to the same place.

Pricing tiers

Three packages plus a higher-tier option for larger productions. Pricing per person, with a minimum event spend.

Classic

$30 per person

$600 event minimum

Private game, custom timing, live game stream, leaderboard, automated wrap-up slideshow, and content export.

Most Popular

Premier

$50 per person

$1,000 event minimum

Everything in Classic plus a dedicated game producer, live virtual events team scoring creativity bonuses during play, in-game messaging, and a custom post-event highlight video.

Gold

$75 per person

$3,750 event minimum

Everything in Premier plus custom challenge winners, team highlight reels for every team, custom company and location challenges, and a virtual host intro.

Amazing Race

$150 per person

$20K event minimum

For higher-production, longer-format events. Includes a fully custom story built ground-up for your group.

Discounts available for large groups, charities, schools, and non-profits.

Full pricing details and booking on socialscavenger.com →

Trusted by teams at

4.9

from 439 Google reviews

Social Scavenger has run city hunts for hundreds of corporate groups across North America, Europe, Asia, and beyond. Companies include Merck, World Bank, Price Kong, Progressive Insurance, YPO, Nespresso, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Google, Hyundai, Deloitte, and many you have probably never heard of.

Julia W., Deloitte
"The City Scavenger Hunt went really well. Everyone really enjoyed their time outdoors and exploring the city. It was a fun and friendly competition that everyone was able to participate in."
Tricia, Merck
"I want to extend my sincere thanks to you and team for putting together 4 awesome events for my global teams. The feedback was very positive. We had such a wonderful time."

See more client examples →

Frequently asked questions

Can we start from our hotel or conference center?
Yes. The game zone is built around your start point. Most groups walk out of their hotel or conference center and into the game. End-point is also flexible. Common setups: start at the hotel, end at a meetup bar; start at the conference center, end back where you started; start at the office, end at a restaurant.
What cities do you run games in?
All major cities, plus plenty of smaller cities and towns. Social Scavenger has thousands of existing game zones across North America, Europe, Asia, and beyond. If yours is not already built, the team builds one custom for you.
What about people who cannot walk far or have mobility limits?
The game has more challenges than any team can finish, so teams are already being strategic about which to attempt. Teams with mobility limits keep their exploration to a tighter area and lean on do-anywhere challenges. Social Scavenger games are built for office workers, not athletes. The pace is comfortable.
Can players with bigger accessibility needs still be part of the game?
Yes. Beyond a tighter game zone, Social Scavenger can build players into the game itself rather than asking them to walk through it. That can mean a player at the start or end point running a challenge for other teams, an in-game role, or a custom challenge that brings teams to them. This is a conversation per-event since every group's situation is different, so flag accessibility needs early and Social Scavenger will work it out with you.
What if it rains?
Three options. One, reschedule for another date. Two, play through. Some of the best games have happened in less-than-perfect weather, and most groups push on. Three, book rain insurance up front. That swaps a wet-weather day to one of the indoor Social Scavenger games (poster-based or app-based) at the same venue. Social Scavenger handles the call with you on the day.
How big a group can play?
Any size. Twenty-person groups work. Five-hundred-person groups work. Hyundai ran a 5,000-person version. Logistics shift with size but the format scales.
How far in advance do we need to book?
Two weeks is the standard lead time. Earlier is better if you want anything custom (custom challenges, custom story, custom company branding). There is not a hard cutoff since Social Scavenger will always try to make the timing work, but the earlier the conversation starts, the more options you have.

See all planning FAQs →

Keep planning

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Tell us your city, venue, group size, and date. We'll recommend the right format, whether that's a city hunt, onsite poster game, indoor experience, or custom build.