TOP 10 Best Virtual Party Platforms to Engage Your Team in 2022

2022 is already showing its reasons to be called “post-pandemic”. However, businesses aren’t exactly rushing back to their usual office-like mode of operations. Gyms, restaurants, and bars are gradually opening up, office spaces — not so much just yet.

So, you’re missing your dream team real bad but the office is still closed. And nobody really wants yet another Zoom call, even if you name it “team-building” in your Calendar. Does this ring a bell? What’s the alternative?

The answer is simple — virtual party platform, a virtual event software, or virtual party rooms (there are many names, but the promise is essentially the same).

What is a virtual party platform?‍

It’s an online tool that uses videoconferencing, screen sharing, streaming, chat, and several other supplementary features to conduct a virtual event with the greatest in-person effect for all.

Additional features of such party rooms may include polling sessions, virtual booths for smaller companies, gamification elements, and even karaoke!

This software industry is one of the fastest-growing market segments today, primarily thanks to the rapidly growing interest in it for both corporate and individual needs. If you are interested in organizing your very first virtual holiday party for colleagues, it would be reasonable to start with a market overview to scope out the most prominent players in it.

Top 10 best virtual party rooms to consider in 2022

1. Party.Space

The name says it all. One thing that immediately catches your attention when you visit the site is that many IT companies are already using Party Space for their virtual celebrations. Among them are Epidemic Sound, Slack, and Grammarly. And who knows more about hosting quality virtual events than IT people themselves?
Party.Space is a metaverse-style events platform. It helps remote teams and online communities to reconnect.

Party.Space offers a variety of formats and designs. Whether you’re looking to throw a Chinese New Year or St. Patrick's day party, celebrate your company’s anniversary, or just team-building for a small project team — Party.Space has a dedicated room for any crazy idea you might have in mind. You can even create a corporate metaverse of your own!

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2. Hoppier

This party room is mainly for foodies. The emphasis is on ordering food from the food delivery vendor of your choice and then having a virtual lunch (brunch, dinner) together. There is also an option to add a post-event gift for participants.

The idea is pretty awesome (everybody loves free food!). However, the entertainment part is basically nonexistent.

3. Mesh

The header of Mesh’s site says, “Everyone is bored of Zoom events”, and indeed, Mesh does not look like Zoom at all. Are you old enough to remember Super Mario and Prince of Persia? If so — welcome to Mesh, you’re gonna love it!

The design is a nostalgic one, which makes it super fun. Because of this old-school design, it is also relatively lightweight, making Mesh the best platform for virtual parties when your team is scattered across the globe and some of your teammates might have an unstable internet connection.

4. Weve

Weve is one of those online party platforms dedicated solely to games. Escape rooms, detective games, TV-style game shows, language, and other knowledge games, you name it.

This makes Weve the perfect fit for happy hours and onboarding ice-breakers. As to virtual events for large groups, things might get a bit messy, especially with over 50 participants.

5. Hopin

As one of the most serious and tech-equipped players in this segment of third-party virtual platforms, Hopin is a good fit when you’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of your business, for example. Or perhaps you’d like to host a relatively formal town hall meeting where you’ll be inviting business partners, affiliates, and so on.

Technically speaking, Hopin has a lot to offer: a hybrid event mode, custom API integrations, email campaigns, a real-time analytics dashboard, and more. However, most of these cool features are not available under the free plan (and there is no publicly available info on the cost of their Enterprise plan).

6. Rume

Rume is exactly the opposite of Hopin. In it, you can play games (how about poker?) and chat with work buddies. That’s pretty much it. This could be a comfy party space for those who like games but are not so software-proficient.

7. Splash

Splash actually specializes in external marketing events and sales enablement. However, they have a solution for internal events too — happy hours for smaller teams and town halls for larger gatherings. Some convenient features of this virtual party website include easy recurring event scheduling, automated feedback collection, and preset design templates. Basically, it is still Zoom but with some organizational extras.

8. Toasty

At first glance, Toasty looks like Zoom built by and for designers (no wonder it even integrates with Figma). The interface is clean and pretty much self-explanatory. Toasty is a good party room choice if you need polling (team voting on several issues) or if you plan to have a webinar-like corporate event that is also meant to be somewhat educational. 

9. Orbits

Orbits has been designed with the intention of an “immersive online venue”, and it is indeed immersive. The key feature and major benefit of Orbits is that it offers custom-made virtual party rooms. For example, you can make it look exactly like your pre-COVID office, your favorite bar next door, or a medieval castle. Avatars also have a strong resemblance with real people, so you will surely recognize your work buddies, even if you haven’t seen them for a while.

10. Arena

As it is obvious from the name, Arena is a good fit for hosting events with hundreds or thousands of people. It can host virtual events for up to 100,000 participants! Arena has all the features a virtual event platform might have, including chats, polls, smaller booths, customizable invites, and even a virtual lobby. 

If you plan to try out Arena for an event with hundreds of attendees, note that pricing is per participant!

Zoom, Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, or even Skype could be used for virtual parties too! However, we’ve intentionally excluded them as they are too formal and make it impossible to implement any kind of “party vibe.”

Our concluding recommendation would be as follows: if you want your virtual celebration to be an actual party space — get as far away from Zoom settings and looks as possible. It has to be fun, mind-blowing, and different. Otherwise, your colleagues won’t even notice the difference and they’ll feel like they’re forced to attend yet another Zoom meeting.