Organizing a pub quiz at your café: the complete game plan
For a café, a pub quiz is one of the few activities that both fills a quiet evening and delivers regular guests. Those who join come with a group, stay for two hours, and drink more in those two hours than during a regular visit.
The problem isn't the idea but the execution. Coming up with questions takes time, counting points takes time, and one evening where the count is wrong costs you half the participants.
What you need
- A fixed evening. Every week or every other week, always the same day. Irregularity is deadly for turnout.
- Forty to sixty questions, divided over four or five rounds each with its own theme.
- Someone to host the evening and link the rounds together.
- A way to keep score that nobody doubts.
- A prize that's worthwhile without being expensive.
The setup of an evening that works
Length
An hour and a half to two hours, including breaks. Shorter feels like too little for the effort of coming; longer and the last round plays out in front of a half-empty room.
Rounds
Four or five rounds of ten questions. Alternate the difficulty and make sure each round has its own character: general knowledge, music, images, something local, and a round that has nothing to do with knowledge, like guessing or estimating.
The local round
This is the round that sets your evening apart from every other pub quiz. Questions about the street, the municipality, the history of the building. Regular guests feel at home and new guests learn something.
The local round is almost always the round that gets the most laughs, and the reason people come back.
Counting points: where it goes wrong
Having guests hand in answers on paper and checking them yourself takes ten minutes between rounds, and in those ten minutes the energy in the room drops. On top of that, discussion arises the moment one answer is marked wrong.
The variant that solves this: guests join via their own phone and the scores add up automatically. At TablePlay, each table scans the QR code, chooses a table name, and the standings appear live. No paper, no checking, no discussion. Check out the games to see which quiz variants there are, or the page for cafés for how that plays out in a café.
The questions themselves
Anyone writing a quiz for the first time almost always makes the same two mistakes: too difficult, and too much factual knowledge. A quiz in which a team gets only two out of ten questions right isn't a challenge, it's a humiliation.
The distribution that works
- Two questions that almost everyone gets right. They're there to give the feeling of being part of it.
- Six questions that require thought or can be discussed. This is where the fun is.
- Two questions almost nobody knows. Those determine who wins.
The discussion in the middle is where a pub quiz gets its value. A question that only one person knows and the rest don't doesn't spark conversation. A question that four people can figure out together does.
Formats that do better than factual knowledge
Estimation questions (how high, how heavy, how many), image questions, music clips, and questions where you have to determine an order. They have one thing in common: you can join in without knowing the answer. That keeps teams in the game who would otherwise drop out after round two.
Prizes that work
The prize doesn't have to be big; it has to be visible. A round of drinks for the winning table, a voucher for next time, or something on the house. A voucher has one advantage over cash: it brings the team back.
Hosting the evening
A quizmaster doesn't have to be funny, but does have to be clear. What keeps an evening running smoothly is almost entirely rhythm:
- Read each question twice, with a pause in between. Reading it once guarantees a hand goes up asking you to repeat it.
- Give the same thinking time per question, and state in advance how much that is.
- Announce the standings after each round. That's the moment the room briefly wakes up.
- Keep the break short. Ten minutes is enough; fifteen and you'll lose half the attention.
The final round
Have the scoring for the final round count a bit more, or hold back one round where teams can wager points. Without that, a team that's ten points behind after round three is mentally done, and you'll notice it at the bar.
How to fill the first few evenings
- Announce it three weeks ahead, not three days.
- Ask your regular guests personally if they'll bring a team. That works better than any poster.
- Put the date on your Google profile and on social media, with a photo of your place rather than a quiz logo.
- Make the first evening easier than you might want to. Someone who feels they have no chance won't come back.
What it costs and what it earns
Count on two to four hours of preparation per evening if you write the questions yourself, plus the evening itself. On the other hand, a quiz night becomes the best-attended weekday evening in most pubs, with higher spending per guest than average because people stay seated longer.
If you'd rather skip the prep work, check what a ready-made tabletop quiz costs at the pricing page.
How long does a pub quiz last?
An hour and a half to two hours including breaks. Shorter feels like too little for the effort; longer and the last round plays to a half-empty room.
How many questions do you need for a pub quiz?
Forty to sixty, spread over four or five rounds of ten, each with its own theme.
How do you keep score without hassle?
Checking paper answers takes ten minutes per round and sparks arguments. Playing along via phone with automatic scoring removes both.
Which evening is best for a pub quiz?
A weekday evening that's currently quiet, usually Tuesday or Wednesday. The goal is to fill an empty evening, not make a busy evening busier.
What's a good prize for the winners?
Something visible but not expensive: a round of drinks, something on the house, or a gift card. A gift card also brings the team back.
Want to try tabletop games yourself?
Give your guests more experience from day one.