A Guide to Planning Resident Events for Your Apartment Community

One of the best ways to keep residents living within your multifamily community is to offer exciting, unique events that they won’t find anywhere else. Not only are they fun to attend, but they help foster engagement with residents, connecting positive experiences with the property and giving residents a chance to become part of the building’s community.

With luxury amenities, contemporary decor, and competitive pricing now expected as standard, resident events can also help differentiate your multifamily from others. Offering resident events can often mean the difference between a signed lease renewal and a lost tenant. Not only that, but it helps attract new residents looking to get in on the fun.

To help you improve your resident retention and NOI, we’ve put together a short guide to planning resident events for apartment communities.

Resident event ideas to get you started

Event planning should form part of your overall marketing and engagement strategy with the photos your residents take and put online acting as free, sincere advertising. Every multifamily community is different though, so deciding what kind of events to host will depend on your building demographic and the time of year.

Here are some ways to think about your events to get you started:

Seasonal

Public holidays and seasonal events are great times of the year to host an event for your building’s community. At Christmas, for example, people are already in the mood for festivities and this can help boost attendance numbers and encourage residents to socialize. Organizing a secret Santa event can be a great way to let residents get to know each other a bit better.

Think outside the box for this one and look for ways to mark calendar events such as Irish themed disco for St. Patrick’s day, a Halloween fancy dress night or a Thanksgiving dinner party.

Community-building

Keeping events regular helps residents touch base with each other and will become something they look forward to.

Events such as a resident BBQ and potluck parties can help bring people together and allow a sense of community to form organically. This can be enhanced by offering residents the chance to work together towards something worthwhile with charity events such as blood drives. You could also try quiz nights with random teams to encourage mixing.

Fun

While it sounds obvious, events should be fun for all involved. Everyone’s idea of fun is slightly different but there are some activities that have universal appeal such as movie nights, and pizza parties. You should also give residents a chance to let their hair down with events that feature alcohol, music, and perhaps more than a little karaoke.

Wellbeing

It’s important to use events to show residents that their well-being is important and is taken care of while living within your building. These events should encourage health, fitness, and self-care.

While fitness classes, walking clubs, and cooking classes are all proven hits, modern multifamily occupants will also be looking to their mental health too. Consider looking to events such as meditation sessions, mindfulness days, and activities that encourage residents to look out for one another.

Educational

Residents also enjoy more educational events that can broaden their horizons and can teach them something new. Putting residents into this student role together also helps bonds to form and communities grow stronger.

These events can include both practical skills such as cooking and craft classes or special interest activities such as wine tasting, candle making, and even financial advice talks. There are countless opportunities here with young professionals particularly keen to expand their knowledge.

Planning your first resident event

Hosting an event for residents involves a number of considerations and should begin as soon as possible. At least a month before the event is due to happen, begin your preliminary research and consider what would appeal to your multifamily community. If your building, for example, is occupied mostly by millennial or younger professionals you should look for events that embrace the social streak of these generations.

You will want to make sure residents know about the event and exactly when it is taking place. Traditionally this has been achieved through texts, flyers, and lobby posters. Modern tenants, instead, respond better to the use of technology.

Flamingo’s Resident Engagement App can streamline the entire event planning process and ensure residents know exactly what’s upcoming on the calendar. Flamingo’s automation tools not only mean residents will be alerted about upcoming events but they can check ahead for themselves, encouraging engagement.

You’ll want an idea of how many people are attending too. This allows for better planning and adequate supplies and allows you to gauge interest in the event. Flamingo has built-in RSVP tools that let you know exactly who’s looking to attend an event. This information can be communicated with other residents via the app, encouraging others to join in too.

Leading busy lives, residents can often forget about upcoming events so it’s important to remind them a day or two before. Flamingo can automate this process leading you to focus on crafting a great event.

After an event, Flamingo can also help gather feedback and generate data that can help further improve the resident experience. Residents are also encouraged to share photos online to ensure events, ultimately, have a positive effect on NOI.

Top ideas for resident events

Flamingo has hundreds of resident events available to book all year round, with the following being community favourites:

1. Monthly outdoor movie nights

Suitable for the social and the not-so-much, outdoor movie nights are a multifamily hit. Movie screens can be set up anywhere that is convenient, including a rooftop making for a particularly special evening. These events are best hosted monthly to form part of your residents’ regular schedule. Offering bespoke popcorn and drinks helps elevate the event, encouraging residents to attend the following month.

2. Friday night happy hour

Most multifamily residents are younger professionals looking to broaden their social circle. Friday night drinks give residents a chance to make long-lasting friendships right on their doorstep. Events can be self-organized or even hosted by local bars.

3. Rooftop fitness classes

Yoga, meditation, and aerobics classes are all available via Flamingo’s platform and can be held on your building’s rooftop if possible. This offers residents a different wellbeing experience and is something they will likely want to share with their network via photos. Residents can be further encouraged by running community raffles with entry via tagging post-workout photos (e.g. #SweatySelfie).

4. Mardi Gras party

Brightening up the colder months can be a challenge but hosting a Mardi Gras party is a guarantee of fun. Residents are encouraged to sport their most outrageous mask, and with plenty of drinks, music, and of course beads galore, residents will soon get into the swing of things.

5. Sitcom quiz night

Hosting a quiz night at your property is always a well-attended event with the interplay of competitiveness and teamwork causing a tonne of interactions. This is great for engagement and when combined with drinks and good food, can be a lot of fun.

6. Pop-up art showcase

Multifamily residents appreciate quality and pop-up art galleries hosted within your building give them a chance to not only take in some great artwork but also furnish their unit too. Art showcases are slower-paced and can be considered all-day, or even multi-day events.

Why host resident events for apartments

There are 3 main benefits to hosting resident events:

Builds a sense of community: residents form stronger bonds when they share positive experiences together. This also extends to staff and management too who residents can get to know. This removes friction and gives a sense of belonging to residents.

Improves retention: residents who look forward to future events are far more likely to renew their lease at the end of their contract. By keeping residents satisfied and engaged through events you will experience far fewer move-outs too, with occupants comfortable raising issues with staff they are familiar with from events.

Generate leads: unique events are also a great way to attract new prospective residents. With existing residents encouraged to share photos online, your multifamily branding work is done for you. People want to feel part of a thriving community and when they see your multifamily events online, it can help motivate people to get in touch. Not only that, but these new residents are often friends or acquaintances of existing residents, creating stronger communities within a building.

Where to find resident event ideas for apartment communities

Flamingo’s Resident Events Marketplace a one-stop solution for organizing multifamily events. Booking is easy with hundreds of diverse events to choose from with residents able to RSVP as easily as they would book an Uber.

There’s no need to scour the internet for hours looking for ideas, we’ve done the hard work for you and put together a database of winning event ideas that can be booked immediately.