How to have better, more fun virtual meetings with Gather Town

So we've been in this pandemic for a while now... most people are still working from home, and all our meetings are virtual. I think most people are now Zoom'd out. Sick of simply seeing people through a camera. What if you could make your meetings a little more fun? A little more enjoyable, and less "bleh".

Last week, I discovered Gather Town. Yes, it's still a virtual meeting, but it's way more fun. Think about how fun it is playing video games and chatting to your friends on comms. That's what Gather Town is like.

You select your avatar on load and you walk around in a virtual environment, interacting with touch points, and seeing other people as avatars. Gather Town uses proximity chat, so if you're close enough to someone you can start having a conversation with them. It can be voice only, or both video and voice.

There's scope for having larger meetings in different spaces, and the whole experience feels like a top down dungeon explorer video game. It's really fun. Not only is it fun, but it's fully customisable.

The sky's the limit when it comes to Gather Town. You can build your own environment, customise a existing one, and even add interactable objects like white boards, video games, signage, websites, and heaps more.

Think about all the things you'd do at a physical event. You can pretty much do them in Gather Town. Visit a merch booth, check out various exhibitors, sit down with someone for coffee ☕ you name it. There's been a tonne of events that have used Gather Town in the past including BostonFIG, Filecoin, EATEL and lots more.

But it's also great for team or personal use. I built a customised Gather Town space for myself and my team to meet in. It was super fun and way more exciting than our usual Zoom meetings. I've also heard people using it for their family chats, friend catch ups, uni meetups and more. As you'll probably know, I'm a streamer too. I'm already thinking about all the ways I could use Gather Town on stream: hosting co-streams, having my chat hang out in Gather Town, building my own Kingdom, and having tonnes of things to interact with.

You can even upload custom graphics too. It's a little bit more in depth, so check out this YouTube video to resize and use your own images:

Next time you're thinking about a fun alternative for a team meeting, think about Gather Town. You don't need to be a designer or creative to use Gather Town. Just use one of the pre-build rooms to meet in.

Have you used Gather Town yet? Did you like it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.