Perkbox: Company All-Hands
The brief was a client day that had to feel like a celebration of what Perkbox stands for, not a sales pitch.
Perkfest is Perkbox's annual day for its community, and 2026 was the second Perkfest we produced with them. This time the room was Perkbox's clients and prospects: the people who choose and run benefits for their own teams.
Hosting your own clients carries a specific risk. Guests give up a working day, and they can tell within minutes whether they have been invited to learn something or to be sold to. The day had to show what Perkbox is about without turning into a product demo. It needed content worth leaving the office for, and enough to do between sessions that conversations started on their own.
The venue added its own challenge. The Vinyl Factory is a raw, empty space below a record shop in Soho. Central, full of character and good value, but with nothing in it. Every chair, light, sign and coffee cup had to be brought in.
We did not start with the stage. We started with what guests would do between the sessions, because that is where a client event is won or lost.
The content was chosen for the room, not for Perkbox. A keynote from Heather Murray on AI for non-techies, a panel and Q&A hosted by Katie Jacobs, and a short session on financial wellbeing. Practical, topical and relevant to people who run benefits and people programmes. One MC hosted the whole day, so it held together as one programme rather than a string of slots.
Around the content, we built things to do. A live customisation station where guests picked Perkbox designs and had them heat-pressed onto their own merch on the spot. A branded slot-car track run by Love Electric, with a leaderboard to fight over. PerkSpace, Perkbox's community hub, at the heart of the room. And a festival-style passport that rewarded guests for visiting every part of the space. Each one gave people a reason to move around, and a reason to talk to someone they hadn't met.
Networking had a format too. PerkSpace Connect used question cards and match stickers to start conversations, then flowed straight into the drinks reception, with live music and walk-around magic. The empty warehouse became Perkfest from the street down: window vinyl on the record shop, branded walls, wayfinding, bunting and furniture zoned for talks, lunch and lounging. We built it the day before and cleared it the day after, so on the live day the whole team's attention was on guests, not set-up.
Guests rated the day 9.2 out of 10, and some were still in the room when the doors closed at six.
In Perkbox's own post-event survey, guests rated the day 9.2 out of 10 on average. They singled out the speaker content, most rated the venue excellent, and every respondent rated the timing and flow excellent or good.
The customisation station was the standout. It worked so well that Perkbox plans to take the idea to its trade shows. And when the drinks and live music started, the room didn't empty. People stayed and talked, and a few were still there at six when we had to close the doors. For a day built to strengthen client relationships, that was the clearest sign it worked.
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