We have GISday coming up in November and we're doing a medium-sized event at my company. Last year we did a Name-That-Place competition and gave away some pretty decent prizes. This year we'll do the same but also want to add a couple more activities.
We plan on doing a Session Raffle, so that people who attend most of our sessions automagically get entered to win a prize. I'm trying to think of an activity that will get people engaged with out solution demonstrations as well. I thought about perhaps a StoryMap competition or a Hackathon, but would like to know what kinds of other contests and activities other folks do. I also thought about a Geocache but that's really hard to pull off without distracting from the event.
Ways to connect with the GIS community.
GIS Day November 16, 2016 - Discovering the World Through GIS
You could get involved with the global Map Off event - Map Off event and be part of a global GIS ,mapping activity that day.
John -
You could use my Weird Earth activity - or modify it - https://blogs.esri.com/esri/gisedcom/2012/02/24/weird-earth-exploring-the-earth-with-interesting-biz...
Or my name that place activity:
https://blogs.esri.com/esri/gisedcom/2014/01/31/name-that-place/
Or my choro quiz:
https://blogs.esri.com/esri/gisedcom/2015/05/15/the-choro-quiz/
I have other ideas on http://edcommunity.esri.com/blog
--Joseph Kerski