For your audience

We have this:

So many amazing speakers & presentations!

I really wonder how audience ice-breaking
is not the ubiquitous unwritten rule.

Here is how to achieve it.

- Physical audience
(talks, lectures, sermons, seminars)

1. The ball.



Buy a stuffed toy. Let's call it 'the ball'.
Ask a question and drop the ball to the audience. 

The one who got it (and answered your question) will 

throw the ball to a random attendee when you ask him to.

2. The shift tasks.

Make each person feel comfortable
with the people around him/her.

- Answer 2 questions from the person on the left.
- Play the staring game. 'The one who laughs first loses'.
- Tell their... (random examples. You'll have yours):
2 favorite foods
2 worse fears
2 beloved family members
2 amazing movies
2 big dreams
..to the person on the right.
- Offer a link for something interesting 
to check online to the person behind you.
- Write down your e-mail or Facebook or 
whatever you wish (business card?)

and throw the paper at random.

-Invent more (& more!).

3. Mixing them up.

After some minutes, ask people to change seats. Suggest to the people who came together to split. Suggest the ones in the front to move back and encourage the last ones to seat at the front. 

Instruct (more) shift tasks after mixing your audience up.

- Online audience.

Here there are way more examples and applications (why?). I won't repeat techniques excellently performed by online-community-experts. That post is long enough.

Cheers!