Two Workshops, One Afternoon: A Double Event for Gemeente Amsterdam

Annual team events can fall into a familiar trap: pick one activity, and half the room loves it while the other half tolerates it. For their team's annual event, Gemeente Amsterdam took a different approach — a double-format session that gave everyone two different kinds of creative time in one afternoon.

The brief: a memorable annual event for one team

This wasn't a company-wide offsite — it was a specific team's annual get-together, and it needed to feel like an occasion. Rather than choosing between a classic painting session or something more playful, we proposed splitting the event in half, so the group got both.

That kind of flexible, two-part format is exactly what an office team event Amsterdam organizer looks for when one single activity won't hold a whole afternoon's attention.

Half one: a painting inspired by the city

The first half of the session was a Guided painting workshop with a design inspired by Amsterdam itself — a fitting theme for a Gemeente Amsterdam team, and a nice way to tie the activity back to the city they work for. Canvases, paint, brushes, and an instructor running the room — the team worked through the design together at their own pace.

Half two: edible cake painting, with Cupcake Boutique Amsterdam

For the second half, we swapped canvases for cake. In partnership with Cupcake Boutique Amsterdam, the team moved into an edible cake painting workshop — decorating their own cake designs with the same guided, hands-on format, just with a very different (and very tasty) outcome.

Splitting the event this way meant no one sat through a single two-hour activity that didn't land for them. Instead, the afternoon had two distinct moods — focused and creative, then playful and hands-on — back to back.

The outcome

By the end, the team had two things to show for their afternoon: a city-inspired painting to keep, and cake to eat on the spot. It's a format we'd recommend to any team looking to make an annual event feel like more than "the usual" — pairing a classic painting session with something a little more unexpected keeps the whole group engaged, not just half of it.

Want to experience this event for your team? Get a direct quote →