Standing tables set up for a round of Turning Tables

The rules in one minute

Look around you, the host says. You are standing at a table with a number and an iPad. On your lanyard are four table numbers. That means four rounds, and after every round you move to the next number. The iPads stay on the table; the people move. Phones go face down. Every round has a theme and ends with medals; at the end of the night we count who collected the most. A QR code or a code on the big screen starts each round, a countdown runs on the screen, and between rounds the DJ plays the changeover music while the host runs an energizer, We Will Rock You or Sweet Caroline, with the whole room on its feet.

The rounds are written for the client. For Gemeente Veere in December 2025 they were general knowledge, a round about the municipality itself, a who-am-I round with photos and a Christmas finale that counted double. For the Public Prosecution Service the content was built with the client around their own work, with questions about street slang, drugs and cybercrime that made prosecutors laugh and learn at the same time. A popular variant uses the formats of nostalgic TV game shows.

High five after a round of Turning Tables

Where it came from

The first big edition was The Multiplier Effect for EY on 11 February 2025 at NH Leeuwenhorst in Noordwijkerhout: 900 guests across two halls, eleven hosts each responsible for a colour-coded district, standing tables with QR codes and iPads set up at 17:30 and a DJ from 17:00. The scores were collected live on the iPads. The scale taught us the thing that now defines the concept: the rotation has to be calculated in advance, or 900 people will find their own way back to their friends.

Later that year the MPI Netherlands congress Crossing Borders, held on 7 July 2025 in Amsterdam, used the same principle for a whole day. Four small icons printed on each badge decided your bus, your walking group and your lunch table, so that planners and suppliers kept meeting new people. The icons were designed in our studio; EY's events team handled the badge production.

Numbered balloons mark the tables

A session at MPI Crossing Borders, 7 July 2025, with a view over the IJ

Editions for government and justice

Together with a games partner from Brabant, Turning Tables became a format for government and the justice sector. On 12 November 2025 we played it with 100 people in the court house in Den Bosch, from 14:45 to 16:00, with the content checked line by line by the Public Prosecution Service. On 17 December 2025 the Christmas edition for Gemeente Veere filled the town hall in Domburg with around 220 people, four rounds, a floor team from the municipality itself and a presenter who closed the evening with a line we kept: the strength of an organisation is not in knowledge alone, but in connection. On 4 June 2026 the format ran at the LocHal in Tilburg during the congress of the national programme Preventie met Gezag, for around 200 participants.

The software we built

In June 2026 we replaced the spreadsheets with our own rotation software. Guests scan an entrance QR code and are assigned a start table; the system calculates a schedule in which nobody keeps the same tablemates and every table stays evenly filled; at each table a QR code tells you where you go next. We tested it with 18 tables of 10 people over three rounds, 720 table assignments, and with 120 simultaneous scans before the first live use. The facilitator sees the tables fill up on a dashboard and starts each round with one click.

The host among the guests at Turning Tables

Practical

• Group size: 50 to 2,000. Above 300 we work with several hosts and colour districts.

• Space: standing tables or dinner tables with room to walk between them; one screen visible from every table; sound.

• Duration: 60 to 100 minutes for three or four rounds, including energizers and prize-giving. Works as a pre-dinner show, a dinner edition or a congress break.

• Languages: Dutch and English. Content is written with the client; every round can carry a theme, a brand or a message.

• Material we bring: iPads, table cards, lanyards or badges with the rotation, medals, host, DJ and technician.

Sources

• Host script The Multiplier Effect, 11 February 2025, NH Leeuwenhorst, and the Turning Tables blueprint for EY.

• E-mail exchange with EY's Travel, Meetings and Events team about the Turning Tables concept for Crossing Borders, May 2025.

• Presenter scripts and production book for the editions at Rechtbank Den Bosch (12 November 2025) and Gemeente Veere (17 December 2025), and the booking confirmation for 4 June 2026.

• Development log of the Turning Tables rotation software, June 2026.

• ENDLESS EXPERIENCES brochure, page Turning Tables.