Getting your team out of the office is one thing. Creating a retreat that actually gets people talking, collaborating, and enjoying time together is another.
Fortunately, Dallas makes it easy to build a company retreat around experiences that are much more memorable than another afternoon in a conference room. Your team can work together to escape a themed room, make something out of glass, try axe throwing, volunteer together, or even bring an instructor directly to your accommodations.
And when you’re planning a retreat for a smaller group, you don’t necessarily need a traditional conference hotel. Renting a private property like our Dallas bed and breakfast gives your team a central place to meet, eat, relax, and participate in activities throughout the stay.
Here are some of our favorite ways to incorporate team building into a Dallas company retreat.
1. Race the Clock at Escapology Dallas
Nothing gets a group communicating quite like a countdown clock.
At Escapology Dallas, your team is locked into a themed escape room and has one hour to solve puzzles, uncover clues, and work out how to make it back out. The rooms have different stories and challenges, so you can choose an experience that matches your group’s appetite for mystery, adventure, or a little friendly competition.
Escapology offers private group bookings and corporate events, and larger groups can reserve multiple rooms at once and compete to see which team escapes first.
2. Play an Immersive Game at Immersive Gamebox
If your team likes games but you want something more interactive than a traditional escape room, Immersive Gamebox offers a completely different kind of group experience. Players enter a projection-mapped room and work together through a series of physical and digital challenges using touch screens, motion tracking, and interactive technology.
Rather than being locked in a room and searching for clues, your team might solve puzzles, complete challenges, collect points, or work together through an immersive storyline. Different games have different themes and objectives, so you can choose an experience that fits your group.
3. Make Something Together at Dallas Glass Art
If you’ve already done the escape room and happy-hour routine, it’s probably time to try something none of you have done before.
At Dallas Glass Art, your group can learn the basics of glassblowing and create something of its own. The studio offers private classes for up to 5 people and larger corporate and team-building events for groups of 6 to 25, with projects ranging from paperweights and flowers to mini vases, ornaments, globes, and other glass pieces. Experiences run for up to two hours and are led by instructors, so nobody needs to show up knowing the difference between a punty and a pumpkin.
4. Get Competitive at Lone Star Axe Throwing
Maybe your team would rather throw axes than solve puzzles. If that’s the case, head to Lone Star Axe Throwing.
After a safety and instruction session, you’ll learn how to throw axes at targets and then have the chance to compete with your coworkers. The Dallas location also has arcade games, table games, and shuffleboard, so the fun doesn’t have to end when the axes are put away.
Larger groups and private events can even be accommodated outside normal business hours, giving you even more options.
5. Cook Dinner Together at Kitchen Social
There’s something about cooking together that makes it surprisingly easy to forget you’re supposed to be having a team-building exercise. Give everyone a cutting board, a chef’s instructions, and a meal to make, and suddenly the conversation tends to take care of itself.
At Kitchen Social in Dallas, groups work alongside a chef instructor to prepare a meal from start to finish. The rotating class schedule includes everything from fresh pasta and sushi to paella, Beef Wellington, seafood, and other hands-on cooking experiences. Kitchen Social also specifically offers private events and team-building experiences for corporate groups.
Classes typically run about two and a half hours, and the best part comes at the end: everyone sits down and eats what they made. It’s a nice way to turn dinner into part of the activity instead of trying to squeeze a separate restaurant reservation into an already busy retreat schedule.
6. Get Outside at Trinity Forest Adventure Park
If your team is looking for something more adventurous, head to Trinity Forest Adventure Park for an afternoon in the trees.
The park’s high-ropes courses involve climbing, balancing, navigating obstacles, and working your way through different challenges above the ground. For corporate groups, the park also offers its GroupWorx team-building program, where facilitators can customize activities around goals such as communication, leadership, and teamwork.
7. Give Back to the Dallas Community
A group volunteer project gives coworkers a chance to work toward a common goal while doing something useful for the community. It can also be a nice change of pace for teams who spend most of their working hours behind computers.
Dallas Doing Good is a good place to start when you’re looking for current volunteer opportunities around Dallas. Depending on what’s available, your group might help sort donations, work on a community project, support an environmental effort, or assist an organization serving local residents.
Because volunteer needs and group requirements vary, you’ll want to arrange the project with the organization ahead of time. But for a company that wants its retreat to have a purpose beyond team bonding, it’s hard to beat an afternoon spent doing some good together.
8. Try Improv With Stomping Ground Comedy
Want your team to communicate better without sitting through another communication seminar?
Stomping Ground Comedy’s corporate improv program uses interactive exercises to work on communication, creativity, collaboration, leadership, and adaptability.
There’s no need for your coworkers to be aspiring comedians. The exercises are designed to get people listening, responding, and building on one another’s ideas, and they’re usually a lot more fun than another presentation on workplace communication.
Even better, Stomping Ground can bring its corporate programming to your location. Instead of loading everyone into cars and heading to a theater, you can host a private improv session right at The Gaston, using one of the house’s shared spaces.
It’s a fun way to shake up the retreat and give everyone an excuse to laugh together.
9. Pack a Picnic and Play Outside
For some teams, the best activity is one that doesn’t require a reservation, a waiver, or a competitive leaderboard.
Pick a Dallas park, pack a picnic, and bring a few games from home. Klyde Warren Park is a convenient downtown option, with its Great Lawn providing space for groups to gather and enjoy the outdoors. You could organize lawn games, a casual scavenger hunt, or a few low-key team challenges, then let everyone choose a food truck for lunch.
White Rock Lake is another good option if you’d like more room to spread out and combine the picnic with kayaking, paddleboarding, or a walk around the lake.
This is also an easy way to give your team some breathing room. Not every minute of a retreat needs to be programmed. Give people lunch, sunshine, a little friendly competition, and time to actually talk.
10. Bring the Team-Building Experience to The Gaston
One of the biggest advantages of renting The Gaston for a company retreat is that you don’t have to leave the house for every activity.
Because your group has the entire property, you can bring instructors directly to you and turn the house into the retreat venue.
Start the morning with a private yoga class in The Gaston Garden through House Call Yoga. Turn an afternoon into a creative break with a painting class from Paint the Town. Or plan a cocktail experience with The People’s Last Stand in The Gaston’s Speakeasy Lounge for an evening that feels a little more special than gathering around the hotel bar.
The point is that The Gaston can be part of the activity, not just the accommodation.
Make The Gaston Your Dallas Retreat Headquarters
When you’re comparing Dallas hotels for a company retreat, it’s easy to focus on the basics: How many rooms are available? Is there Wi-Fi? Is there somewhere to hold a meeting?
For a small group, though, there’s another question worth asking: What happens when the meeting is over?
At The Gaston, your team gets the entire 1912 home to yourselves. Five guest suites accommodate up to 10 overnight guests, each with its own ensuite bathroom, while the rest of the house gives everyone room to gather without having to reserve a separate conference room or squeeze around a hotel lobby.
The full chef’s kitchen, formal dining room, sunroom, shared gathering spaces, high-speed Wi-Fi, and gated parking make it easy to combine the practical parts of a work retreat with the parts everyone will actually remember.
The result is a retreat that feels more like time away together than a business trip. Meetings can happen around the dining table, dinner can stretch into drinks in the Speakeasy, and there’s no need to rush everyone out the door when the day’s official schedule ends.
Plan a Dallas Company Retreat Your Team Will Actually Enjoy
Whether your group spends the afternoon racing through an escape room, making glass art, volunteering, laughing through an improv workshop, or simply gathering for a picnic in the park, the goal is to give everyone a chance to connect outside their usual work environment.
With The Gaston as your home base, the retreat can be as structured or relaxed as your team needs. Fill the weekend with activities, bring an experience to the house, or leave an afternoon completely open. You get to build the retreat around your team instead of fitting everyone into a hotel’s schedule.
Contact us and let’s personalize your team experience. Because sometimes the most valuable part of a company retreat isn’t what’s on the schedule. It’s what happens after the schedule ends.
