Tournament.

Participation required: medium-high
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: medium
Duration of the event: 1-3hours

Tournament is usually level restricted, so only 60s can participate, or you could restrict level to 40-45, or whatever is most suited for your guild. You can also have a low-level tournament (say level 10 characters). Rules will have to be set beforehand, make sure to state your policy on consumables, engineering, trinkets (especially ones like Barov peasant caller), and abilities with long cooldown. You can either allow or disallow all of the above, but make sure you make it clear before the tournament to avoid frustration. Make sure to define what kind of tournament it will be (be it elimination or round-robin or a mix). Tournament can involve 1v1 fights or team fights. 1v1 fights are easier to organize and will require less people, but they are more one-sided and will give advantage to some classes. Team fights on the other hand are much more fun and require teamwork, those are much more preferred as a guild events, however there are some difficulties with those fights. First of you will need to completely take over one of the arenas (STV, DM are best candidates). All of the teams that are not fighting at the moment will have to be on the lookout and eliminate any interruptions so the fight goes well. As for actual teams you can either have pre-made teams or allow players to make their own teams, once again teams can be restricted to certain class or have no restrictions.
All of the above options can bring a variety in the event.
You can have some sort of reward for the winner(s) of the event. For example you can have entry fee and winner takes all, or you can have guild sponsor the event.

Rat Race.

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: medium
Event organization required: high
Duration of the event: 1-2hours

Rat Race, or also known as naked gnome race. For this event you will require guildies to make level 1 alts and bring them over to the start point (I used gates of Orgrimar). Race and class of the alt does not matter much, but you could restrict it if you want. The point of this event is a death race through the very dangerous places. Basically you set the track, or the start and finish points and the first to reach the finish wins. You could set checkpoints along the way to restrict players to particular path or give
them freedom to choose their own. For me, I set up the track from Orgrimar to Shadowpray Village in Desolace with the checkpoints in Crossroads and Sun Rock Retreat. You can also set finish in the enemy capital, that will bring some wicked fun to this J however will increase the length of the event. The rules of the event should be as follows: no summons/portals, no consumables, no enchants/speed enhancers (if there are any available at level 1), no flight paths, no rezing at spirit healer. Any cheaters should be disqualified. If it is a guild event you can rely on the honesty of the
players, however if you organizing server-wide event you will need some observers to make sure everyone is following the rules.
Usually there is a reward tied to first place (or first 3). Reward can be either from admission fee or from the guild fund.
You can use the RatRaceTracker addon to keeptrack of participants and their progress: http://ui.worldofwar.net/ui.php?id=4274 Addon was originally written by me then updated/fixed/expanded and posted by Darias (hats off man :P)
As an interesting twist you can make race an escape instead, just summon all the noobs in some dengerous place and see who can make it out alive :)
Limiting number of allowed deaths can put a nice twist on this event as well.

Escort.

Participation required: high
Pre-event organization required: medium
Event organization required: high
Duration of the event: 1-2hours

This event is very similar to the Rat Race, but with a twist. For this event teams of 3-5 people will be required, one of them should be level 1 alt (VIP), rest (Body guards) do not matter (60s will be preferred). Objective of the event will be for the team to escort the level 1 alt from start to finish. The restrictions are laid only on level 1 alts and they are: no summons/portals, no consumables, no enchants/speed enhancers (if there are any available at level 1), no flight paths, no rezing at spirit healer. Bodyguards may be allowed to rez the fallen VIP. Destination for the escort should be set in a very hostile environment (AH of the capital city of the opposing faction would be a great choice). Once again reward for finishing first could be set from either admission fee or guild fund.

Scavenger hunt.

Participation required: high
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: medium
Duration of the event: 1-2hours

More in-depth writeup on Scavanger hunt can be found later in the thred, http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12052659&postId=146010200&sid=1#38 thanks to Ashling
This event is aimed towards guild progression. For the event you will need teams of 3-5 people with member with every gathering profession present. At the beginning of the event you announce the list of the materials required from the participants, example:

[Dreamfoil*20

Ice Cap*20

etc

All teams will have set amount of time (1 or 2 hours usually) to gather the above materials from all over the world. Note that list should be long enough, so it is nearly impossible to complete for the given time. Each item should have points assigned to it, example:

Dreamfoil 1

Ice Cap 1

etc

Points should also be announced at the beginning of the hunt. After the set period of time all of the participating teams should return to the organizer with as many items as they could gather from the list. The team with the most points wins. There can be some sort of penalty set for late submission of the items (say 2 points per minute) to discourage last minute farming. Also there can be some restrictions placed upon the teams, like: team cannot split up, cannot use portals, summons, etc.
List of the items should be composed by the guild leader (or officer) according to the items needed by the guild for the instance progression (lie mats for FR/SR/NR gear, flasks, etc) and points should be assigned according to the need of the particular item and/or the time investment needed to get said item. Note that there is a risk of guildies going to the AH for some (or all) of the materials especially if the prize for 1st place is considerable. There are several ways to deal with that. 1: you can place officers at all the AH and banks and keep a close eye on all teams. 2: set the first prize lower then the value of the items put together. 3: set the prize higher then the mats put together, but lower then double of those mats and do not announce the winner until every team has handed the mats in, this way if 2 teams buy items from AH there is still income to the guild fund.
This event should be sponsored by the guild fund.

Some tips on finding items for scavanger hunt(s): http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12052659&postId=818953656&sid=1#187

Treasure hunt.

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: high
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 1-2hours

For this event you will require a lot of pre-event organization. This is basically a wild treasure hunt. Here's how to do this. Beforehand you will need to make an alt that guildies do not know about and bring him over to some location, kill him and log him out. That will place the corpse of the said character in the world. Note that corpse will disappear after about 5 days after the planting, however it seems to preserve through rolling restarts (not sure about maintenance). After you have planted the corpse you will need to come up with some clues to give to participants to his location. You can either present all the clues at once, or provide them gradually as event moves on. The first one to find the corpse wins (they should message you the location of the corpse, you can have a macro for that). Why plant corpse, not the live character you could ask, that is to prevent people from narrowing down the location of the character using /who command. You could also restrict the movement by disallowing ports/hearth or
placing other restrictions, but I've found it to be much more fun when there are no rules. This event should be sponsored by the guild fund, or have no prize in the end.

Speed Instance Run.

Participation required: medium-high
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 30min+

For this event you will require at least 2 teams running same instance simultaneously. You could choose lower level instances if you do not have enough high-level players in the guild. This event is aimed at gearing up players and pushing players to the limit in team play. You should set up 2+
groups to be set to go into the same instance at the same time (Scholo/Strat works good for teams of 5 of 60s, ZF/Mara works well if you do not have enough 60s, ZG could be used for high-end guilds). All teams start off at the same time by entering the instance ad the first team to kill target boss
(not necessarily the last boss) wins. To make sure they have killed the boss they will have to present the loot from the Boss. Instance runs can be substituted by quest chanes.

Pirating (PvP).

Participation required: medium
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: n/a

At this event you will gather as many people who want to PvP as possible and take over the ship or zeppelin (depending on faction). This is a simply fun PvP event with no apparent goal, but bringing pain to the opposing faction.
It's also fun for everyone to get Savory Deviate Delight and dress up like pirates.

Road Block/Occupational Camp (PvP).

Participation required: low-medium
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: n/a

At this event you will gather as many people who want to PvP as possible and take over some quest node or block a road or bridge. This is a simply fun PvP event with no apparent goal, but bringing pain to the opposing faction.
As a interesting twist you can wonder arround into wildernes and start a camp fire there. Everyone sits around it and just waits for enemy to show up. To make sure they DO show up several scouts should be sent forth to attract unfortunate souls :)
<contributed by Arcanian>

Town Raid (PvP).

Participation required: high
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: medium-high
Duration of the event: n/a

At this event you will gather as many people who want to PvP as possible and head over to the town controlled by the opposing faction. You can choose town according to the number of players you have participating and set up a goal, like kill some dude in that town. Be very careful in the towns to not agro civilians. Make sure you know positions of all civilians beforehand and all of the AOEers are aware of their positions.
You can attack 2 towns simultaneously and see which team can complete their objective first.

Trivia.

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: medium
Event organization required: medium
Duration of the event: n/a

You could organize a trivia night with reward for each correctly answered question and/or to the person with the most correct answers by the end of the event. Topics can very from WoW related to whatever you wish. Prizes should probably be either cash or items from the guild fund.

Lottery.

Participation required: high
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: n/a

Great write-out on lottery can be found later in this thread, http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12052659&postId=146010200&sid=1#35 thanks to Ashling
You could organize lottery amongst the guild mates. The prize(s) can be items from the guild fund (blues/epics/nexus crystals/FR gear). Usually you would have guild mates buy tickets for the set price (say 1 gold). Tickets should be available for sale for lengthy period of time (say 1 week) and by the time of the draw you have a list of players who have bought the tickets and how many they have bought. Example:

Player 1 buys 10 tickets
Player 2 buys 20 tickets
Player 3 buys 5 tickets
Player 1 buys 10 tickets
------------------------------
Total 45 tickets sold

Note, that you should keep a list of who bought how many tickets and when.
At a set time you should have a draw, draw should be a random by the officer for the number of tickets sold. In case above it would be /rand 45. To determine the winner just match the number rolled to the ticket number and see who bought it. Example:
If /rand 45 in example above landed on 33, Player 3 would have won the item.
All the proceeds should go to the guild fund. Price of the ticket can be set according to the items.

Beggars can be choosers.

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 1hour+

This event might sound a bit strange, but nevertheless it is fun. What you have people do is to create alts (or use existing alts they do not care about), make sure that none of the alts is in your guild (very important!).
The key of the event is in a given time frame (usually 1-2 hours) every participant has to gather as much gold as possible in any way participant sees fit. Now granted you will not be able to get much gold from questing or farming in given timeframe, so the most profitable way will be ... yes you guessed it - begging, and that's the most fun way too. Now, what do you usually say to the "can I have 1g plz?" I bet something like "go get a job" or "I'm not a charity" kind of response. However some people tend to be more creative and say something like "I have given my gold to the monsters of this world, you can go and hunt them down to retrieve it, once you bring it to me I will award you with the half of it" Interesting, isn't it? Of course, proper begging requires some tedious tricks and/or flattery etc :). It is a lot of fun exchanging some remarks from other players during the event and bugging the same guy over and over, basically you need to participate in such an event at least once to truly understand how fun this can be. You can also create a small guild just for that (given you have 10 players participating) and call it something like "Bums", "Beggars", etc.
This event can be organized just as fun, ie no competition, or as a actual rundown. To do that after a given timeframe every participant should trade all the gold they have obtained in the process to the organizer (it should be a trustworthy person). After everyone is traded the gold organizer will name the winner (person who gave the most gold) and that person will get half of all the money, ret of the money goes to the guild bank. Why half you ask? It discourages transferring amount from the main to win "for sure".

Naked Deadmines run. (contributed by Nodokra)

Participation required: low-medium
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 30min+

You create even teams (no 5 mages groups for example) of 4-5 60's, as many groups as you can and they run Deadmines as fast as they can naked. No equipment of quality higher then white is allowed, however any and all abilities are allowed, except for pets. The first team to finish the instance wins. Items dropped by all the bosses may be used to determine if the instance was finished. Since Deadmines has an exit in the end of it you can have start point and finish line at the same point, say at the meeting stone. Prize can be either from guild fund or from admission fees.
Very similar to the Speed Instance Run, but not gear-dependant.

Low level boss raids. (contributed by Nodokra)

Participation required: medium
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 10min+

Basic idea is to get as many low level alts as possible (levels 1-5) to go and kill the first "boss" there is in the world (eg: Hogger).
Simply a fun activity with no prizes but self-satisfaction :) difficulty can be changed by reducing number of participants and/or level of said participants.

Flight Path Roundup (contributed by Thorin)

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: n/a

The higher level characters will go from flight path to flight path and summon alts and lower level chars so they can get all their flight paths.
Some places we make them run to (like menethil harbor), this can easily turn into the escort. This is tons of fun and usually full of many antics while we wait for summons. We also get a lot of questions, like "What are all these level 15s doing in Winterspring?

Guild vs. Guild (PvP) (contributed by Mocarth)

Participation required: medium-high
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: medium
Duration of the event: 1hour+

This is probably the most difficult event to organize since it will require participation of at least 2 different guild from opposite factions. What you will need is the remote location somewhere (island off the shore near ratchet was suggested) and 2 groups of different factions participating.
Once you have all the participants in-place you can start either some sort of tournament (see tournament) or just plain old skirmish. It is also fun to have prizes for the people who first kill certain player from the opposing faction (sort of wanted thing). You can also try restricting numbers and levels for more balanced PvP.

Roaming (PvP) (contributed by someone from Arthas server)

Participation required: high
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 1hour+

This event was first organized by one of the guilds on Arthas, but I do not remember the name of the author of the idea. This event has to be organized on server-wide scale since you will need several 5-man groups from each faction to participate. Basic idea is to have several 5-man groups roam around the designated zone (say Un'Goro) and look for fights with another 5-man groups of opposing faction. If you spot the group you are interested in engaging you should approach it on the mounts and dismount in front of them. If they dismount back that means that they have accepted the challenge (you could probably set some sequence of emotes to establish that). By rules no other groups should engage other groups unless both groups have decided to engage each other.
No group should engage unmounted group unless they just have unmounted in front of you as a sign of the challenge. No group should engage group that is mounted. That allows groups to choose their fights and escape the "unwinable" fights.
Once again this event should be only attempted on server-wide scale.

Darts (contributed by Reajhu)

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 1hour

For this event you will need people to create level 1 alts of particular race (same race characters should be used because of the size). Or you could allow mains/alts as long as they are of the same race. You will also need a high cliff. For horde side I would suggest Thunderbluff or Thousand Needles, alliance side, mountains around Ironforge seems like a suitable choice. You could also pick more exotic locations, like a jump point from Mount Hyjal (yes, I know it is a closed zone), or top if Orgrimar, or any other "hard to reach" places, but make sure to bring a high level lock with you if you do that. Then, when everyone is in place organizer will set a target (most likely just jump down himself). The goal of the event is for the alts die as close to the target as possible by jumping down. Target could be set beforehand so the exact place to jump off is unknown.
Everyone gets 2 redoes if they wish, so for example if the first time someone jumps they do not like the way they jumped they can redo the jump up to 2 times. However if the consequent jump is further from the target then previous results are lost, so it is up to participant to determine if they want to redo or not.
At the end person closest to the target wins.
Possible alterations would be: allowing only one jump per character or 3 jumps per character (that will require 3 characters per participant).
Prizes can be provided by guild fund or participation can be taxes and winner takes the pot.

Mystery Trip (contributed by Lloydpaltini)

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: high
Event organization required: no
Duration of the event: 1day+

This event is best suited for small guilds or guilds, which have players from different time zones. Organizer of the event will travel the world and take screenshots of himself in various places. Places should be picked carefully and could follow some particular pattern. Later all the screenshots should be posted on guild website, or any other place all the guildies can view them. After the screenshots have been posted everyone has a set period of time (it can be even several days) to visit those exact places and take their own screenshots in the same place. The person with the most matching screenshots wins. This event can be restricted to the low level characters (ie character on the screenshot cannot be of level higher then 10 or something).
As for the actual original screenshots they would have to be taken in not commonly known or hard to reach places with probably some tips to the whereabouts on the background. Say if you take screenshot of yourself under the waterfall in the Org (place that no one usually even notices) have part of the nearby building on it and possibly a guard walking by.

Gurubashi Swarm (contributed by Nik)

Participation required: very high
Pre-event organization required: medium
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 30min+

This event will require a very high participation. Everyone participating should make an alt (or have an alt ready) of level not higher then 10(flexible), you could restrict it to level ones if you wish. Set a time for when you know the chest is going to appear on Gurbushi Arena and make sure every alt is there by that time (you can use locks to summon them in or even have a death-race to the arena if you decide on level ones). The first one to get anything from the chest wins.
For even more challenging task you could organize it in prime-time /grin.

Dodgeball (contributed by Fernurion

Participation required: medium-high
Pre-event organization required: low
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 30min+

Players are divided into teams of 3, each wearing matching colors (see your local tailor for options). One player acts as a referee. Play starts with 10 Heavy leather balls in an 'arena' of choice (the more populated the field of play, the more entertaining). on the whistle (fireworks, flare, whatever), teams start running, the ref tossing balls at random. the teams then throw the balls at each other, running and hiding to avoid being hit. after a set time period, (5 mins for example), the teams count up their balls (O.o), with the team with the most being eliminated. in the event of a tie, both teams are eliminated. play continues until one, or no, teams remain. a 2 ball penalty is issued to anyone who throws a ball to a toon not involved in the game, and a 1 ball penalty for hitting the ref. (good arenas: Orgrimmar, Booty Bay, Thunder bluff, Stormwind, Ironforge, Undercity, Wailing Caverns, Cenarion Hold, Feathermoon stronghold, basically anywhere with lots of corners and hiding places).

Poker night

Participation required: low
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: low
Duration of the event: 30min+

Basically you have everyone install Texas Holdem addon http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-4938-1-wow-texas-holdem.html and make a poker tournament. Now, gambling is illigal in lands of Azeroth, so just play for fun, not for a prize :)
This addon also helps pass the time after wipes in instances...

L2P Raid (contributed by Ladin)

Participation required: low-medium
Pre-event organization required: none
Event organization required: medium
Duration of the event: 30min+

You are going to raid an instance, SM maybe, with all classes pretending to be a different class. A warrior who is going to heal (bandages hehe), a rogue who is a mage (bombs), another rogue who will be a warlock (another guildie will dress in blue and be his minion - he will tell her what to do), a mage as a hunter (our engineers will make attacking pets), etc.

Tonk Wars

Participation required: medium-high
Pre-event organization required: high
Event organization required: high
Duration of the event: 1hour+

This event will require some planning and organization. As the name suggests event will make use of recent addition to WoW, Tonks. If you do not know, tonks are a toys that can be used to "fight" other tonks. It is basically a chaneled critter with some abbilities that can harm other tonks. There are 2 sources of getting said tonks: a rather simple quest in Terrokar Forest (63+ zone), engineering schematic. In order to obtain schematic you need to visit Darkmoon Fair, schematic is worth 20 tickets.
There's really no limit on what you can do with those tonks: simple scermish, race, king of the hill... you decide. However if you are on the PvP server I would suggest orgonizing event somewhere safe(ish).

Guess Who Clue (Contributed by Maedis)

Participation Required: medium
Pre-Event Organization Required: medium
Event Organization Required: low
Duration of the Event: 30 minutes to an hour


In this event, players are tested on how well they know their fellow guildies. This requires about six people from one guild, and one person from another. The seven(ish) players give clues on what they do and what they have done in their guild. *Must be on level one alts newly created.* Each participant must then guess who is the "mole" - the one person who isnt in guild.You could make them explain WHY they think that person is so and so, or just a plain guess to the host. The host should write down which people guessed what. You could also tweak this into guessing who the seven people are. You can add more people if needed, make sure they are trustworthy not to give out information on who they are to friends. The winner is the person who got the most correct / closest to correct. This could envolve prize money to the winner from admission fees, or no prizes at all. After the event is over, the clue people reveal who they really are. This is filled with alot of fun and laughs once you find out who everyone is.

Pin the snowball on Darius (Contributed by Snowmiser)

Participation Required: medium
Pre-Event Organization Required: low
Event Organization Required: medium
Duration of the Event: 30 minutes+


For this event you will require lots of snowballs. Place a high-level target (Darius) somewhere with lots of hostile mobs around (not too high of a level). Every participant (except the target) makes a level 1 alts and brings them over to the shooting range. The objective of every participant is to throw a snowball at the Darius. When Darius gets hit he moves several stepes into the direction of the snowball. Every participant takes turns shooting at target. Rezes are only allowed on the graveyard. Last person to hit Darius wins.
You could limit the number of snowballs used or the number of rezes to make event shorter and/or more chalanging.

Conclusion.

Well, that's about it for me, if you have any questions and/or comments please post here. Also if you know of some guild event that I have not covered above, post it here I would be happy to add it to the list.
And have fun :)



Changelog:

May 16 Added Guess Who Clue - thanks Maedis

May 16 Added Pin the snowball on Darius - thanks Snowmiser

Mar 9 Added Tonk Wars

Nov 20 Added L2P Raid - thanks Ladin

Nov 9 Added Occupation Camp as alternative to Road Block - thanks Arcanian

Oct 11 Added Naked Deadmines Run, Low level boss raids - thanks Nodokra

Oct 14 Added Flight Path Roundup - thanks Thorin

Oct 17 Added Guild vs. Guild - thanks Mocarth

Oct 17 Added Roaming PvP - plz post here if you are the author of the idea so I can give you some credit :)

Aug 24 Added Beggars can be choosers.

Aug 25 Moved to the new forums.

Aug 28 Added Darts - thanks Reajhu

Aug 30 Added Mystery Trip - thanks Lloydpaltini

Aug 31 Added Gurbushi Swarm - thanks Nik

Sep 8 Started adding links to good and constractive posts in the OP. Keep them coming!

Sep 27 Added Dodgeball - thanks Fernurion

Sep 29 Added Poker night

Bump.



hey balsi, we should do something like this sometime...

/bump

This is an excellent guide! Some of these events sound like a lout of fun. Grammar and spelling (mostly spelling) could be stepped up however.

Wow, this is a fantastic set of ideas. You've inspired me to try some of this crazy stuff in the coming weeks; my guild is mostly 30-50, so it'll need some tuning for us, but the idea hooks are great!

Bagger's can't be choosers suggestion:

That the judge place the lvl 1 alts on their friends list. This way they can observe whether or not the alt goes offline to transfer any funds from a hedge fund ><

/bump

---

Q u o t e:
Bagger's can't be choosers suggestion:

That the judge place the lvl 1 alts on their friends list. This way they can observe whether or not the alt goes offline to transfer any funds from a hedge fund ><

/bump

---

unfortunatelly people are more engineous (sp?) then you want them to be :( they could send the money to the alt up-front, or have the friend who's not participating to "give-in" and pass over several hundred gold coins.
the 50/50 split with the guild fund is the best way to do this, because it will prevent people from trying to "scam" this event in the first place. The only problem here is if judge will decide to grab the gold for himself, but thats ine person to keep an eye on, and he can be tested afterwards by people participating posting the actual money they maneged to gather.