Organizing a pub quiz at your bar: the complete playbook
For a bar, a pub quiz is one of the few activities that both fills a quiet evening and generates 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 doesn't add up 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 attendance.
- Forty to sixty questions, divided over four or five rounds each with its own theme.
- Someone who leads the evening and talks between rounds.
- A way to keep score that no one 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. Vary 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 town, the history of the building. Regulars feel at home and new guests learn something.
The local round is almost always the round that gets the biggest laughs, and the reason people come back.
Counting points: where it goes wrong
Having guests submit answers on paper and checking them yourself costs you ten minutes between rounds, and in those ten minutes the energy in the room drops. On top of that, discussion arises as soon as one answer is scored incorrectly.
The variant that solves this: guests join in via their own phone and the scores add themselves up. At TablePlay, each table scans the QR code, chooses a table name, and the standings appear live. No paper, no checking, no discussion. See the games for the quiz variants available, or the page for bars for how that works out in a bar.
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 two out of ten questions right isn't a challenge but a humiliation.
The distribution that works
- Two questions that almost everyone gets right. Those are there to give the feeling of being part of it.
- Six questions that require thought or discussion. This is where the fun is.
- Two questions that almost no one 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 doesn't produces no conversation. A question that four people can figure out together does.
Formats that do better than factual knowledge
Estimation questions (how tall, 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 need to be big; it needs 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.
Leading the evening
A quizmaster doesn't have to be funny, but does need 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 asking you to repeat it.
- Give the same thinking time per question, and say in advance how long 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; at fifteen minutes you've lost half the attention.
The final round
Let the scoring of the final round weigh a bit heavier, or keep one round in reserve 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 evenings
- Announce it three weeks ahead, not three days.
- Ask your regulars 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 the venue and not a quiz logo.
- Make the first evening easier than you'd like. Anyone who feels they had no chance won't come back.
What it costs and delivers
Count on two to four hours of preparation per evening if you write the questions yourself, plus the evening itself. In return, a quiz night becomes the best-attended weekday evening in most bars, with a higher spend per guest than average because people stay seated longer.
If you'd rather skip the preparation, check what a ready-made quiz costs at the pricing page.
How long does a pub quiz take?
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, divided into four or five rounds of ten, each with its own theme.
How do you track scores without hassle?
Checking paper answers takes ten minutes per round and sparks debate. Playing along via phone with automatic scoring removes both problems.
Which evening is best for hosting a pub quiz?
A weekday evening that's currently quiet, usually Tuesday or Wednesday. The goal is to fill an empty evening, not to 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 voucher. A voucher also brings the team back.
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