FORMAT · PUB QUIZ

A pub quiz without the clipboard

Rounds of questions on the TV, teams writing their answers on paper or typing them on a phone, and you marking each one with a tap. The half points, the running total and the leaderboard are done before you've finished your drink.

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Question generation included

What is pub quiz software?

Pub quiz software runs the admin of a quiz: it shows the questions, collects the answers or prints the answer sheets, and keeps the scores. The quizmaster still reads the questions and makes the calls.

In The Party Quiz each round appears on the TV one question at a time. Teams answer on a printed sheet or on their phones, and at the end of the round you mark every team's answer as right, half right or wrong. The totals follow on their own.

The pub quiz at a glance

Rounds: 1 to 10 rounds, of 5 to 15 questions each (a round can grow to 40 in the editor)
Teams: Up to 4 teams on Quiz Starter; 20 on Quiz Host, Quizmaster or a Quiz Night event. Connected phones: 10 on Quiz Starter, 100 with those paid offers.
Answers: On printed answer sheets, or typed on phones, number questions get a number keypad
Marking: ✓, ½ or ✗ per team, per question; points in halves
Round rules: Per question, all-or-nothing, or closest guess wins
Question types: Text, picture, music clip, video clip, multiple choice
Length: About 90–120 minutes for six rounds

PAPER OR PHONES

Keep the answer sheets, lose the admin

Plenty of quizzes ban phones, and that's fine: print the answer sheets straight from the host screen, one per team, with the questions numbered and a line for each answer. The sheets never show the answers.

Prefer phones? Each team types its answer and sends it. Either way, you mark from one screen.

Printable sheets with a Team line and numbered answers
Or answers typed and sent from phones
A paper-only setting that keeps every phone quiet

Answer sheets

MARKING

Tap, tap, tap. The totals are done.

At the end of a question, or a whole round, every team's answer is listed next to the right one. Tap ✓, ½ or ✗. That's the marking.

Scores are worked out from your marks, so correcting a mistake is just changing the mark. Marks sync between your host screens, so a co-host on a phone can mark while you run the questions from the laptop.

Teams & scoring

ROUND TYPES

Picture rounds, music rounds, closest-guess rounds

Add a picture to any question by pasting its web address. Play a music or video clip from YouTube on the TV. Set a round to closest-guess-wins for estimation questions, or all-or-nothing when one slip should cost the lot.

A connections round works too: the last question asks what links the answers, and it's worth more than the rest.

Music & video

How a pub-quiz round runs

Read the question
It appears on the TV, with its picture or clip, and you read it out, the way a quizmaster does.
Teams answer
On their answer sheet, or on a phone. Phones show the question as well, for anyone at the back.
Close and mark
Close the question, see each team's answer, tap ✓, ½ or ✗. On paper, collect the sheets and mark from those.
Reveal the standings
Reveal the answers on the TV. The totals update, and the room finds out who's ahead.

Questions about the pub quiz

Can I run a pub quiz with no phones at all?

Yes. Choose paper answers when you create the pub quiz, print one answer sheet per team from the host screen, and mark from the sheets. The TV still shows the questions, and the scoreboard still adds itself up.

Does it mark answers automatically?

No, and that's deliberate. Free-text answers need a person to judge them, “Leonardo” for “Leonardo da Vinci” is your call, not a spellchecker's. Number questions are the exception: in a closest-guess round answered on phones, the nearest guess wins by itself.

How do half points work?

Every mark is right, half or wrong, so a question worth one point can score 1, ½ or 0, and a question worth three can score 3 or 1½. Totals stay exact.

Can I have a picture round?

Yes. Paste the web address of an image into a question and it appears on the TV. Uploading images from your computer isn't supported.

Can people play on their own instead of in teams?

Quiz Starter: up to 10 phones in 4 teams, or 10 solo players. Quiz Host, Quizmaster and an event with Quiz Night: up to 100 phones in 20 teams, or 24 solo players. Solo play is available in gameshow and Quickfire, and a Would You Rather quiz is always solo; pub quiz is team-only.

Is there a timer on written questions?

No countdown, you decide when to close a question, because you're the one reading it out. Phones can send an answer for up to five minutes after a question opens. The countdown is for board clues and quickfire questions.

Also worth a look

Write your first round

Six rounds of ten, or three of five, the wizard sets it up and the AI can fill it in.