What an Away Day With Us Actually Is
Most corporate away days are entertainment with an agenda attached. A venue, a speaker, an activity, a long lunch, a slot called strategy. People go home in a better mood, and on Monday the meeting that mattered runs as it ran last month. Our own decision guide is blunt about it: away days are for morale, restoration and recognition, not behaviour change.
We do not run the social kind of away day. If the team needs a rest and a good lunch, other providers do that well and we will say so on the call. What we build is the working part of a corporate away day, the hours in which something is meant to change: professional actors play the people the team finds hardest to deal with, the group handles those conversations live, stops, takes feedback and goes again, the method on role-play training with professional actors.
Business theatre played at an audience has no behavioural target, no debrief, no second attempt and no measure, as our guide to immersive theatre training sets out. So the first question is not the venue or the date, it is what should be different in the team's next difficult meeting.
Formats: The Same Ones We Run Everywhere Else
The specifics change with every brief. Priced per engagement.
Sidestream's own method description, not a research finding.
The formats are the ones on our other pages, placed inside a day with a venue and a lunch around it. For one group of 5 to 30 people or a leadership group of 8 to 12, a half-day of four hours with one or two scripted scenarios with professional actors is the shortest format; its trade-off is one round of rehearsal and debrief rather than the full iteration cycle.
A one-day workshop of 7 to 8 hours, same group sizes, runs several scenarios with deeper rehearsal; a two-day format puts practice at work between the days. Alongside scripted scenes there is real play: a participant brings a conversation they actually have coming up and briefs the actor themselves. Cohort design is on team building workshop London.
For a division, a conference or an all-hands away day, the format changes. One of our learning experiences runs for 45 to 75 minutes in front of an audience of 100 to 300, followed by structured small-group discussion, a plenary debrief and commitment-making. The format is on large-group immersive event London, the learning experiences on immersive events London.
Lead time is the constraint people underestimate: 8 to 10 weeks for an established learning experience, longer with deeper customisation, and around six weeks from scoping to delivery for a workshop. Work is priced per engagement, because the effort sits in the scenario design and the casting.
Three Away Days, Step by Step
The steps are the ones our other pages describe, arranged for the three commonest away-day briefs. What the actors play is agreed first, so the team rehearses its own difficult conversation, not a generic one. One run-through produces awareness, the second attempt starts a change, which is why the full-day format builds one in; a half-day has room for one round of rehearsal and debrief, and for a second run only if the running order is designed for it.
- Leadership team away day, 8 to 12 people, full day. A short input on the behaviour agreed in scoping. A full scene played by professional actors with the pressure intact, managed live by the group. The scene taken apart and run again, stopped at the exchanges that decided it. Commitments for the weeks after, and an optional follow-up simulation around 90 days later. Scenarios for senior groups, and the programme we build for a single senior leadership team, are on our executive training London page.
- Departmental away day, 5 to 30 people, half-day of four hours. A typical half-day design would set up one scenario, scripted or real play, rehearse it, debrief it in a way that names the specific behaviour rather than a round of what did we learn, and run it once more with the learning incorporated before consolidation.
- Conference or all-hands away day, 100 to 300 people. Pre-event communication that sets the context and the behavioural target. The learning experience, 45 to 75 minutes. Small-group discussion and a plenary debrief. Structured commitment-making.
What One Day Can and Cannot Do
The Department for Education's Employer Skills Survey 2024 puts UK employers' training spend at £53.0 billion, which "equated to a spend of £1,700 per employee, down from £1,960 in 2022", with training days per employee unchanged from 2022 at 3.6 days. An away day is a large slice of the training time most people get in a year, and it should do something you can see afterwards.
Two meta-analyses point the same way. Lacerenza and colleagues' 2017 meta-analysis of leadership training across 335 independent samples supports needs analysis, feedback, multiple delivery methods and especially practice, spaced sessions, on-site and face-to-face delivery. Taylor, Russ-Eft and Chan's 2005 review of 117 studies of behaviour modelling training found skill development greatest when training time was longest, and transfer greatest when practice used scenarios the trainees generated themselves, when trainees set goals and when their superiors were also trained.
Read for an away day: the day builds the skill, the weeks after decide whether it gets used, the participants' own managers belong in the design, and a conversation the participant brings in beats a generic one.
Our own evidence is narrower, and its most useful finding is about why the feedback form misleads. In a randomised 2020 UCL study by co-founder Ben Laumann (n = 57), rehearsal with a role-play coach produced significantly better feedback delivery than an instructional slideshow or video, rated blind by two independent assessors. Its practice condition was an online coaching session of at most 20 minutes, not an away day, and we do not present it as a measurement of one.
On a scale of 1 to 7, self-rated confidence rose in every group from before the session to after the task, from 4.46 to 5.39 with slides, 4.69 to 5.38 with video and 4.27 to 5.53 with practice, and the modality made no significant difference to it (p = .958), nor to how much it rose (p = .541).
People leave a slideshow feeling more capable. Nothing suggests an away day is different. Neither feeling is evidence. Confidence figures: Laumann (2020), UCL, unpublished research paper, Figure 4. The rest of the study, limits included: the study behind the method.
Rehearsal scored higher than either passive format. The bars overlap: individual scores varied, and the difference lies in the group means. Slideshow and video did not differ significantly. The rehearsal condition was an online coaching session of at most 20 minutes with a role-play coach, so the study tests the principle behind the method, not today's programme.
Source: Laumann, B. (2020), Active vs. passive L&D: differences between modalities for effective L&D in communicational competence, PSYCH0056, University College London, unpublished. Randomised, n = 57. Cohen's d = 1.08 (practice vs video) and 0.75 (practice vs slideshow), Tukey-HSD with Bonferroni correction; slideshow vs video not significant, p = .838.
That is why we look at what people do, in the room and in the follow-up simulation, not what they tick on a form. An organisation that wants numbers as well can baseline a few indicators it already collects before the day and re-read them at an agreed interval afterwards, typically weeks to months later. The mechanics are on how to measure behaviour change; why a single day changes little unless it was built to be embedded is on does one-day training last.
Where This Page Sits Next to Our Other Pages
Four pages here are the nearest neighbours of this one, each with its own job. Team building workshop London is the half-day or one-day on how a team works together. Large-group immersive event London is the event format for 100 to 300. Immersive events London describes the learning experiences and their London venues. Team workshop vs away day is the decision guide for restoration versus rehearsal. This page is the offer for the day itself.
One caution from that guide applies here: a 90-minute rehearsal block dropped into an otherwise social day does not make it a workshop. Where a team needs restoration as well as rehearsal, the guide's advice is two events, sequenced. Where the brief insists on one day, the rehearsal core is designed first and the social elements are placed around it so they do not dilute it, which is how our combined engagements are built.
Corporate Away Days in London: In Short
Sidestream builds and runs the working part of a corporate away day in London: a half-day or a full day for 5 to 30 people with professional actors, scripted or real play, or a learning experience for 100 to 300. We look at what people do, in the room and in the follow-up simulation, not at the feedback form, because in our own study self-rated confidence rose after slides, video and rehearsal, with no significant difference between them. Priced per engagement. Get in touch today. We are Sidestream.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a team away day?
A day away from the usual workplace for one team, usually with a venue and a longer lunch. Its job in most organisations is morale, connection and recognition. Sidestream adds the working part: a rehearsal block in which the team handles its own difficult conversations with professional actors and tries them again. Team workshop vs away day separates the two purposes.
Do you facilitate the whole day or one session?
The working part. We design and run the rehearsal or the learning experience and the structured work around it, and would advise on the running order so the social programme does not dilute it. Venue, catering, transport and the social programme stay with you.
Can participants bring their own conversation?
Yes. Next to the scripted scenes there is real play: a participant brings a conversation they actually have coming up, briefs the actor themselves and rehearses it in the room. It suits groups where the hard conversation is already known and named.
How much notice do you need?
For a workshop, around six weeks from scoping to delivery. Quick-turn under six weeks is possible with reduced confidence in the outcome. For an established learning experience with light customisation, 8 to 10 weeks; with deeper customisation, longer.
How do you know the day changed anything?
We look at what people do, in the room and in the follow-up simulation, not what they tick on a form. Our randomised UCL study found self-rated confidence rose after slides, video and rehearsal, with no significant difference between them, while observed delivery differed significantly.
Where in London does Sidestream run corporate away days?
Sidestream builds and runs the working part of a corporate away day in London: a half-day or a full day for 5 to 30 people with professional actors, or a learning experience for 100 to 300. Sidestream designs and runs that rehearsal block rather than facilitating the whole day; the learning experiences and their London venues are described on the immersive events London page. Priced per engagement.
Sources: Department for Education, Employer Skills Survey 2024 · Lacerenza, Reyes, Marlow, Joseph and Salas (2017), Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis, Journal of Applied Psychology 102(12), 1686-1718 · Taylor, Russ-Eft and Chan (2005), meta-analysis of behaviour modelling training, Journal of Applied Psychology 90(4)