Team-building challenges are bigger and better in Texas, especially if you stage them in Fort Worth’s Stockyards District or at Texas Motor Speedway, says Val Lenington, CMP, CSEP, DMCP, director of marketing/co-founder of Ultimate Ventures, a full-service destination management company focused on the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex region.
“When a client requests a taste of Texas, Fort Worth immediately comes to mind,” she says.
Culinary cook-offs, chuck wagon building and track driving challenges are among the exercises Lenington’s company has staged on the west side of the Metroplex.
“The Stockyards is what people want to see when they come to Texas,” Lenington says. “We have done a number of chili cook-offs on the Back 40 in Stockyards Station. Groups get divided into teams and their challenge is to prepare pots of chili for judging. We’ve done up to 200 people for this type of exercise, and afterwards donated the chili to local homeless shelters. That works very well.”
Chuck wagon construction challenges are also popular in the Stockyards district, she says. Teams use materials they are given to build their own wagons, then they race them afterwards.
Saloon girls and gunfighters can enliven a Stockyards scavenger hunt, Lenington points out. They’ll help guests find what their clues call for, and the same costumed actors can pull attendees into a Western murder mystery, which is certainly appropriate for the Stockyards, Billy Bob’s or even a hotel ballroom.
“The meeting planner gives the actors some information about the organization or some of the VIPs, and they’re off and running with a plot to engage everyone,” she says.
For groups with a healthier team-building budget, there’s plenty of speed and high-octane thrills at the Texas Motor Speedway, a supersized venue with 155,000 seats and a nine-floor club building at one turn of the track. Its driving school, pace car rides and track tours may be customized to fit the program.
“People can get the ride of their lifetime in NASCAR racecars that go up to 160 mph,” Lenington says. “Rent out the track, drive with professional drivers—it’s a great afternoon or evening package.”
After the track event, groups can enjoy dinner, awards and entertainment in the nine-floor Speedway Club, which has multiple meeting and ballroom spaces overlooking the track, or do barbecue and burgers in the track’s garage space.
