A sneak peek into our brand new renovations
One of our biggest accomplishments of 2021 so far here at Matchbox is the creation of our Matchbox Kitchen. Over the last few weeks, our Kitchen has undergone some pivotal visual renovations, and we are pleased to invite you in through the backdoor to check out what we’ve been working on!
If you’re not familiar with the Matchbox Kitchen, here’s a little breakdown:
Our “Kitchen” is a virtual space (within our very own platform “Matchbox Virtual Spaces”) produced to spark creativity, co-creation, and collaboration. The space is filled with over a dozen “recipes,” which are step-by-step guides to creating some of our most inventive virtual event sessions and experiences. Our Kitchen is also home to periodic live events where we encourage folks to put on their metaphorical chef hats, grab their metaphorical mixing spoons, and join us in inventing new ways to create meaningful experiences online! Keep reading to get a full tour of our Kitchen and all that it has to offer.
The Overall Ambiance
Any virtual event should have its own mood, or tone. Within our Matchbox Virtual Spaces platform, tile covers allow for tons of creativity in delivering the tone we want to set for our Kitchen viewers. Down below is an snapshot of how the Kitchen looks as a unit:
Oooooh, ahhh! Pretty sleek, right?
It’s important to us that the Kitchen instils a kind of journey and adventure. No one recipe should necessarily exist on its own – we encourage “best pairings” and “full-course meals,” because many recipes are even better in combination with each other. That’s why we decided to incorporate waves drifting into one another, not only between tiles side-by-side, but between categories up and down. Notice how each tile can exist beautifully on its own, but fits intentionally in the big picture when pieced together? It’s like a puzzle piece, but it doesn’t look quite so lonely when taken out of the puzzle.
Putting recipes together into multi-course “meals” turns an event experience into a journey, with a beginning, middle, and end. That’s why our new tile covers establish continuity.
We’ve also separated each category by color. So let’s break ’em down!
Welcome & Hello
In our classic Matchbox red, we’ve got our first two categories introducing the Kitchen, its uses, and some opportunities to interact with us! Here, you can put your name in our Guest Book by signing up for our Kitchen Newsletter, leave us your ideas & suggestions through a typeform, or leave your mark by adding “magnets” to our “fridge” (which is, literally speaking, a jamboard! See below)
Recipes: Live Session
Our first recipe category, which has the greatest number of recipes within it, is our Live Session! Many of these recipes reappear in other categories as well, but what they all have in common is the ability to be produced in a live video setting. They all encourage hands-on participant engagement with video and audio. Some provide educational value, some encourage meaningful networking, some are low-stress ice-breaker or reunion game activities, and all are designed to spark high engagement and interest from your participants!
Recipes: Pre-Produced Session
Next is our category filled with Pre-Produced Session recipes, packaged in blue! Done the Matchbox way, these sessions can be pre-produced with the help of our experienced Session Directors and Editors, who create beautifully polished video sessions designed to be broadcast to attendees alongside a live, active, and fruitful attendee chat, where thoughts are shared and developed rapidly. You may notice some of these recipes also appear in the Live Session category, and that’s because they’re versatile! They can be prepared in either format.
Recipes: Games
This may just be our most fun and creative recipe category: Games, decorated in white! Here we’ve got virtual twists on some of your favorite childhood games, including our Scavenger Hunt recipe which we dove into in an article we posted a few weeks ago. These are fabulous tools for community building, for letting loose, and in some cases, a little friendly competition.
Recipes: Partner
Presented in sleek, black tile covers are our Partner recipes created in collaboration with innovative virtual technologies. So far we’ve collaborated with our friends at Seenit, Piccles, and Propfuel in using their platforms to enhance the value of virtual events.
We’re always looking to create new recipes highlighting creative virtual technologies. If you’d like to collaborate with us on a new recipe, we’d love it if you could shoot us an email at mishka.rehak@matchboxvirtual.com so we can connect!
Recipes: Sponsor Activation
In our next recipe category, we collect opportunities for Sponsor Activation, shown in red! As you can see, this is our smallest category so far. That’s a big reason why we’ve chosen to create a cohort alongside Amanda Kaiser of Kaiser Insights LLC dedicated to exploring how to build even more meaningful and effective Sponsor Value strategy. If you’re interested in developing value for your sponsors, you can learn more about how to get involved on our Incubator homepage!
Recipes: Drop-In
This next category in blue is filled with our Drop-In style recipes! These are unique, because they are produced with the intent of allowing participants to interact asynchronously. Instead of being scheduled at a particular time where participants all gather together, prepared Matchbox-style, these are experiences designed to be perused on one’s own time within a tile. Technically speaking, all of these recipe tiles within the Kitchen are Drop-In style, because they are not designed to be showcased at a specific time, but rather open for viewing 24/7.
These are some of the most effortless virtual experiences to produce and can also serve as palpable souvenirs to look back on after an event is over. Great pairings alongside Live or Pre-Produced sessions!
Special Collections
Our Special Collections are home to full fledged cookbooks, each containing an overarching theme. As of yet, the one special collection cookbook we feature in our Kitchen is from our first Incubator Series with Amanda Kaiser on Virtual Networking! Here, we have four tried and tested special-edition recipes each designed for different networking objectives.
Well, there we have it: A full tour of our brand new Kitchen post-renovation! Be sure to check it out yourself. below
And make sure to Subscribe to our Kitchen Newsletter if you’d like to be in-the-know about juicy ideas fresh off the grill and invitations to exclusive brainstorming sessions!
