Team Building Activities in Salt Lake City: An Insider Guide
If you’re looking for fantastic team building activities, Salt Lake City is a prime destination. As someone who’s been facilitating events here for over 17 years, I can tell you there’s something truly special about this mountain-ringed city.
I’m Ben, a Lead Facilitator at TeamBonding, and I’ve had the privilege of working with countless teams here in the Crossroads of the West.
In this guide, I’ll explore what makes Salt Lake team building activities so special, highlight the best events this city has to offer, and offer some insider recommendations for where to go and what to see while you’re here.
What Makes Team Building Activities In Salt Lake City So Special?
Salt Lake City offers a wonderful blend of natural beauty, local hospitality, and that distinctive Utah vibe that you just can’t find anywhere else.
Unlike many of the cities I lead events in, Salt Lake City events have a special advantage—most of them involve people who are local to the area. This creates a dynamic where team members share a genuine connection to their surroundings.
And when teams are visiting from out of state, the friendly environment in the city tends to make activities feel more authentic and engaging.
Fresh Mountain Air
Salt Lake City’s elevation sits at over 4,200 feet, which gives everything a crisp and energizing vibe that has a larger impact than you’d expect. Plus, there’s just something about the mountain views surrounding the valley that puts everything into perspective.
Team members often comment on how the fresh mountain air seems to sharpen their focus during problem-solving challenges.
Culture of Kindness
Another thing I’ve noticed when facilitating team building activities in Salt Lake City is how focused the culture here is on giving back and fostering community. Especially during the holidays!
It’s just this collective focus on helping others out—I’ve seen more corporate social responsibility events here than any other city! Teams genuinely thrive when activities incorporate that spirit of collective contribution.
Best Team Building Activities in Salt Lake City
If you want the best corporate team building activities Salt Lake City has to offer, it’s all about picking the right one for your group. Some teams prefer to be mentally challenged, while others enjoy getting active and outdoors, and that’s okay!
There are definitely some experiences that seem to resonate with just about everyone in Salt Lake, though! These are the ones that’ll almost always perk your team up and get them engaged as they explore this beautiful city.
Escape the Blizzard
Our Escape the Blizzard escape room challenge is always a hit in Salt Lake—it’s not just a fun, high-tech challenge, but an opportunity for your team to learn about the phenomenon of Lake Effect snow from the Great Salt Lake.
It’s also a great theme for this blizzard survival game. Your team will have to work together to survive severe weather conditions through a series of app-based challenges and face-to-face competitions, and it’s always a blast!
The best part is that you can schedule this event in any weather, including cold winter days, since it works best in an indoor space. It’s a great way to help your team:
- Boost listening skills
- Improve collaboration and role delegation
- Get comfortable with agile thinking
- Improve teamwork and relationships
What was that about Lake Effect snow?
It happens in the winter when cold air travels over the saltwater in the lake and picks up moisture that falls as snow downwind. This creates snowstorms in a concentrated area that usually fall right over Salt Lake City, and it’s not something you’ll find in every state.
This is fun for visitors to learn about for the first time, and tends to prompt locals to appreciate the unique beauty we’re privileged to live among here at the Crossroads of the West.
But I digress—this is something I find truly fascinating, but I really just didn’t want to leave you hanging after mentioning such an interesting thing.
Corporate Film Festival
Another thing most people don’t know about Salt Lake City is that the Sundance Film Festival takes place in Park City, just 45 minutes away, and here! This makes our Corporate Film Festival team building event a particularly popular choice.
There’s a significant cultural focus on the film industry around Salt Lake, and this event lets your team members get behind and in front of the cameras to create their own Hollywood blockbuster!
Your team will collaborate to create a short film, with different groups handling different things, including writing, acting, advertising, and beyond. And they’ll do it all with access to props, costumes, and some of the most stunning skylines in the United States.
It’s about more than the cinema scene in Salt Lake City, though. This event will help your team:
- Improve their communication skills
- Tap into the power of storytelling
- Practice management, leadership, and delegation
- Boost creative collaboration
Global Music Festival Game
Salt Lake is home to a ton of amazing music festivals with this “go big or go home” vibe, and it’s a great place for our Global Music Festival Game!
Those who know me won’t be surprised that this is among my all-time favorite Salt Lake corporate games, though.
As the inaugural facilitator for this program, which premiered here in Salt Lake, I witnessed something magical—people from different departments discovering shared musical interests and cultural backgrounds. It was an experience I’ll never forget.
The program uses a custom app from TeamBonding as teams complete a bunch of challenges and activities, all with the spirit of friendly competition. They’ll also move between different stages and locations to take pictures and videos the whole time.
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts is here in Salt Lake City, and I highly recommend integrating it into this experience in some way. It elevates the entire event! The Global Music Festival is about more than games and fun, though. It’ll get your team to:
- Improve problem-solving skills
- Foster healthy work relationships
- Develop more effective communication skills
- Enhance leadership skills
Ecopitch — Corporate Sustainability Challenge
Over the past several years, I’ve watched Salt Lake City focus more and more on sustainability, renewable energy, and waste reduction. This city is aiming to be on 100% renewable energy by 2030, and it shows with how popular our Ecopitch event is.
This is a corporate sustainability challenge packed with engaging interactive challenges and collaborative activities that’ll have your team working together to create solutions to real-world environmental issues.
Salt Lake has been a leader in air quality improvement efforts, urban planning, and sustainable development initiatives, and it’s fun to explore how everyone can help save the planet in such a progressive place.
It’s not just about being eco-friendly, though! This event also gets your team to:
- Improve team dynamics
- Empower colleagues
- Practice creative thinking
- Appreciate team ingenuity
Local Recommendations for Team Building
Salt Lake City has some amazing places to see, things to do, and food to try—whether you’re a local or visiting team, there are just some spots you won’t want to miss!
Here are some of my recommendations as a Salt Lake local to enhance any team building activity and help you make memories with your team.
Pre- and Post-Event Dining
Going out for a meal with your team members amplifies the effects of team building events by giving everyone a chance to bond over what’s about to happen or what they just experienced:
- Before the event, sharing a meal together will stir up energy and build anticipation, which helps everyone get into the team building they’re about to participate in.
- After the event, enjoying food and drinks together will let your team reflect on what they’ve just completed, solidify bonds, and share memories or personal experiences the program may have brought to mind.
There’s great food all over Salt Lake City, but I wanted to share the spots I’ve found that never fail to impress:
- Caputo’s Deli: Go here for great sandwiches and a casual vibe
- Log Haven: Head here for amazing crab cakes and cocktails
- Mumbai House: Dine here for authentic Indian food and a fun atmosphere
- Ruth’s Cris Steak House: Eat here for great steak and quiet business dinners
- Red Rock Brewing Company: Go here for awesome fish and chips or to wrap up a pub crawl scavenger hunt
The wealth of amazing food here in Salt Lake City surprises me to this day. You just can’t beat it! Additionally, if you’re interested in culinary classes and other food-related group activities, Salt Lake City is an ideal location to make it happen.
Must-See Attractions
It should come as no surprise that the Crossroads of the West has some must-see attractions—there’s so much to do here! Entire books have been written on the topic, so I’ll limit this list to my top three recommendations to get you started:
- Snowbird Resort: This is a ski resort that’s great for appreciating winters here in Salt Lake City. It has fantastic classes, 13 lifts, and the longest run here is 2.5 miles. This is also a nice place for our Ice Sculpting Class!
- Natural History Museum of Utah: This museum is enormous and always has interesting exhibits. I’ve facilitated our Day at the Museum scavenger hunt here several times, and it’s always a hit (Hogle Zoo is another fun spot for this event).
- Temple Square: This 10-acre complex is a National Historic Landmark. It’s owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it’s beautiful! Bonus points if you catch the sunset during a high-tech scavenger hunt here.
Okay, so I snuck in a fourth location with the Hogle Zoo—I’ll stop here! Point is, Salt Lake City is jam-packed with amazing things to see, and your team will love getting to check them out together!
Ready To Plan Some Memorable Team Building Activities? Salt Lake City Awaits!
Once you experience some of the team building activities Salt Lake City has to offer, you’ll be hooked! This beautiful place has so much to offer teams of all kinds from a wide range of industries. It’s truly hard to go wrong here.
That said, sometimes planning team building activities can be overwhelming, and if you’re a leader, you probably have other things you’d like to focus on. If that sounds like you, we’re here to help!
The crew here at TeamBonding, myself included, is always happy to help you customize and plan the perfect event. We can even create one from scratch if you don’t find what you’re looking for in the 200+ programs we currently have in our catalog.
Contact us today to find out how we can help your team learn, grow, and bond!
