PULTEVENT
Audience participation software: 8 ways to get a live room involved
A company kickoff in a hotel ballroom, 280 people at round tables, ten past two. The head of sales finishes his slides and asks, brightly, "Any questions?" Somewhere near table fourteen a chair creaks. The silence lasts about six seconds, which on a stage feels like a fortnight. Then the event manager, standing by the side door, makes the throat-cutting gesture that means go to coffee.
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Rooms don't stay quiet because they're bored. They stay quiet because putting your hand up in front of 279 colleagues is a risk, and nobody wants to be first. Audience participation software lowers the risk to zero: people tap their phone instead of raising a hand, and the room sees the collective answer on the big screen instead of one brave person.
PULTEVENT does this from a laptop browser. The host console stays on the laptop, the stage goes to the projector, and the audience joins by scanning a QR code with their phone camera. No app to install, no account. The one honest requirement: every phone needs internet, from the venue Wi-Fi or mobile data, and at a big event that deserves a conversation with the venue before the day.
8 formats for audience participation at live events
1 Live voting
A question on the big screen, options on every phone, results building as people vote. Use it for opinions, predictions, choosing what happens next.
How to run it. Ask something with no wrong answer for the first vote. "Which city should host next year's kickoff" gets 90 percent of the room tapping.
It's the lowest-effort way to hear from every single person in the room at once.
2 Quiz from phones
Questions about the company, the industry or the year just gone. Everyone answers from their phone and the leaderboard shows who was paying attention.
How to run it. Write questions from the morning's presentations. People suddenly wish they'd listened.
It turns the content you want remembered into something people compete over.
3 The game-show board
Categories and point values on a board, in the classic game-show format. Tables play as teams, one spokesperson answers.
How to run it. Put one table captain from each department. Cross-team rivalry does the rest.
A board keeps the energy of a TV show without needing a studio.
4 QR raffle
Guests scan the code to enter, the draw happens on the big screen, and the winner's name comes up in front of everyone.
How to run it. Open the raffle at registration and draw it after the last session. It keeps people in the room.
No paper tickets, no fishbowl, no argument about whose ticket fell on the floor.
5 Guest wheel
A spinning wheel with names on the big screen, choosing a volunteer, a table or a prize winner.
How to run it. Put only willing volunteers on the wheel for stage tasks. Keep the whole room on it for prizes.
The wheel takes the blame for who got picked. The host doesn't.
6 Task randomizer
A random task comes up for whoever the wheel or the host picked: say a word, strike a pose, tell a thirty-second story.
How to run it. Write the tasks for the room you've got. A board meeting and a sales party need different lists.
It gives stage participation a structure, so volunteers know what they're agreeing to.
7 Drift Arena
Up to twelve guests steer 3D cars on the big screen from their phones while the rest of the room cheers them on.
How to run it. Run one heat per department, then a final. Give the winner something shiny.
It's the one format where the spectators are as loud as the players.
8 Dance battle
Two volunteers dance, the room votes on phones, the result appears on the screen.
How to run it. Save it for the evening part of the event, never straight after lunch.
Two people on stage, 280 people deciding, and nobody has to hold the microphone.
Join by QR code
Guests point their camera at the screen and they're in. No download queue at the start of the session.
The room answers together
Votes and answers show up as a group result on the big screen. Nobody is singled out.
Games, not just polls
Quizzes, a game-show board, raffles and races that fill the stage with the whole room.
Run by one host
A laptop, a projector, a person with a microphone. No separate operator desk needed.
What to look for in audience participation software
No app. Every download step loses a slice of the room, and conference Wi-Fi hates app stores. Browser-based joining via a QR code is the only thing that works for a crowd of strangers.
A host view separate from the audience view. The person running it needs controls, notes and the next item; the room needs a clean big screen.
More than polls. A session of questions and bar charts gets repetitive by the third vote. Quizzes, raffles and games give the event a shape: warm-up, peak, finish.
Language handling. In international teams, the audience interface on each phone follows the phone's language by default. The host console is available in English, and you can turn the language matching off.
An honest pricing model. PULTEVENT uses a one-time license, no subscription, with a free 3-day demo that needs no card. The price is on pultevent.ru/en.
Internet at big events, honestly
Every phone that joins needs a connection. At 30 people this is never a problem. At 300 it depends on the venue: some hotel networks handle hundreds of devices happily, others fall over at eighty. Ask the venue how many devices their guest Wi-Fi supports and whether it requires a sign-in page.
Mobile data is the safety net. In most city venues with decent signal, phones on mobile data join without the Wi-Fi at all. In a basement or a steel-framed hall, check on the site visit. The host laptop should have its own reliable connection, ideally a cable or a dedicated network, with a phone hotspot as a backup.
Participation versus performance
There are two kinds of audience participation, and good events use both. Everyone-at-once formats (voting, quizzes, raffles) involve the whole room at low risk. Few-on-stage formats (dance battles, the task randomizer, the wheel) involve a handful of people at high visibility, while everyone else watches and votes.
Start with the first kind. By the time you ask for volunteers, the room has already been tapping away for half an hour, and hands go up much more easily.
"Anyone want to come up?"
"Can I vote instead?"
Hybrid and remote audiences
For people joining from home, share the stage window in a video call. They see what the room sees and join from their phones with the same QR code, so the remote office in another city votes and plays alongside the ballroom.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run audience participation at a live event
- 1
Pick three or four formats for the session: a warm-up vote, a quiz or board, a raffle, maybe a game.
- 2
Ask the venue about guest Wi-Fi capacity and sign-in pages; check mobile signal in the hall.
- 3
Connect the laptop to the projector, extend the display and open the stage window.
- 4
Put the QR code on screen at the start and give people a full minute to join.
- 5
Run everyone-at-once formats first, then bring volunteers on stage.
- 6
Close with the raffle draw or a scoreboard podium so the session has a clear ending.
FAQ
Does the audience need to download an app?
How large an audience can take part?
Can it run without a technician?
Is the audience interface in English?
Are there ready-made quizzes?
Can remote attendees join?
Is it a subscription?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
All audience interactions, a second screen and timing in one app. Guests join by QR — internet is needed for you and for them.
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