PULTEVENT
Dutch borrel games: 6 ways to liven up Friday drinks and the big days
Friday, ten past five, the canteen on the fourth floor of an office in Utrecht. The bitterballen have just come out of the fryer and everyone is burning their mouths on them anyway. A tray of cheese cubes with little flag sticks, a crate of beer on the windowsill, twenty-five people standing in the same three clusters they stood in last week. The new developer from Lisbon is holding a glass of juice near the door, not sure whether this counts as work.
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The borrel is a Dutch institution: informal drinks after work, usually on a Friday afternoon, with fried snacks and no agenda. It is pleasant and completely unstructured, which is exactly why it can go flat in an international team where people default to their own language group. One short game, fifteen minutes, is often enough to mix the clusters.
PULTEVENT runs on the laptop that is already plugged into the meeting-room TV. The host opens the console in a browser, the game goes on the big screen, colleagues scan a QR code and play from their phones. No app to install, and the office Wi-Fi covers the connection they need. For King's Day and Sinterklaas you use the same set-up, just longer.
6 borrel and party formats for a Dutch office
1 The Friday five
Five quick questions on the week: what the canteen served on Tuesday, who fixed the printer, which client sent the longest email. Everyone answers on their phone and the fastest correct answers win.
How to run it. Collect the questions during the week in a shared note. Anyone can add one.
It turns the borrel into a small weekly habit people look forward to, without anything formal.
2 Guess the colleague
Everyone sends in one little-known fact about themselves: grew up on a dairy farm, played in a brass band, has cycled to Paris. The screen shows the fact, phones guess who it belongs to.
How to run it. Make sure the newest hires are in it. It is the quickest introduction they will get.
The clusters break up because people walk over to ask about the dairy farm.
3 King's Day orange quiz
A quiz for the 27th of April (or the 26th when the 27th falls on a Sunday): the free market, orange everything, the royal house, Dutch words foreign colleagues keep mispronouncing.
How to run it. Mix easy picture questions with a couple of hard ones only the born-and-bred Dutch will get.
The international staff find out what the fuss is about. The Dutch staff get to explain it at length.
4 Sinterklaas surprise draw
The QR raffle draws who writes a poem and gives a small gift to whom. On the evening, the poems go on screen one by one, and the room votes for the one that was most cheerfully merciless.
How to run it. Set a gift budget in the invitation and a length limit on the poems: eight lines is plenty.
The draw is fair and visible, and the reading turns into a small show with a winner.
5 Drift Arena between departments
Up to twelve cars on the big screen, each steered from a phone. Sales against finance, heats of twelve, then a final.
How to run it. Put the heat winners' names on the scoreboard so the final feels earned.
Colleagues who never speak at meetings turn out to have strong opinions about cornering.
6 Leaving borrel slideshow
Someone is moving on. Their colleagues' photos and short clips play on the TV, then a quick vote on the best memory, then a round of applause and more bitterballen.
How to run it. Ask for clips a week early and keep each under thirty seconds.
A proper goodbye without booking a restaurant or making a speech nobody wants to give.
Fifteen minutes, then back to the snacks
Each borrel game is short. Nobody has to cancel their train home.
Dutch, English, whatever the phone says
Guest screens follow each phone's language. The host console is in English.
Orange for King's Day
Your own background on the splash screen, confetti on top, a quiz on the royal family and the free market.
Sinterklaas without the paper chaos
Draw names by QR raffle, read the poems on screen, vote for the best one.
Why a borrel needs something small
The Dutch have a word for the atmosphere a good borrel has: gezellig. Cosy, sociable, pleasant company. You cannot schedule gezelligheid, but you can remove the things that block it. In an office of twelve nationalities, the biggest blocker is language: Dutch speakers drift together, English speakers drift together, and the Lisbon developer stays by the door.
A short game on the screen gives everyone the same thing to look at and the same thing to talk about. After fifteen minutes you switch the screen to a slideshow of the week's photos and let the borrel carry on as normal.
Mixed languages without awkwardness
The host console runs in English. Each colleague's phone follows its own language setting, so the buttons, instructions and results messages appear in the language that phone uses. Anything you write yourself (questions, facts, captions) appears as you typed it. For a borrel quiz I write in English and add the Dutch word in brackets when it is funnier.
"Is een kaasschaaf a question or an answer?"
"Both, if you're Dutch."
King's Day in the office
Most of the country is out on the streets on King's Day, so the office party usually happens the day before or the working day nearest. Orange clothes, orange cake, a borrel that starts after lunch. A splash screen with an orange background and your company name sets the tone. The quiz can cover the free market, the old tradition of selling your stuff on the pavement, and a picture round of Dutch snacks.
Sinterklaas evening
The feast is on the 5th of December, and many Dutch offices hold a surprise evening around then. Everyone draws a name, buys a small gift and writes a teasing poem to go with it. The raffle handles the draw, so nobody ends up with themselves. On the night, put each poem on screen as it is read out, then open a vote. It works well with twenty people, and with forty it is best to read only the shortlisted ones.
The practical bit
You need the office TV or the projector in the big meeting room, a laptop with a browser and an HDMI cable, and working Wi-Fi for everyone's phone. Test the QR code from a phone on the guest network, not the staff one, if your office separates them. That is the most common failure I see, and it takes one minute to check.
For hybrid teams, share the stage window in the video call you already use for the stand-up. Colleagues at home answer from their phones.
Pricing, briefly
Test everything with the free 3-day demo; no card is needed. If the team likes it, the office pays once for a licence rather than a subscription. The figures are on pultevent.ru/en.
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 a borrel game on the office TV
- 1
Pick one short game for a normal Friday, or a longer programme for King's Day or Sinterklaas.
- 2
Collect facts, photos or questions from colleagues during the week.
- 3
Build the round in the console and set a splash screen with the office name.
- 4
At five o'clock, connect the laptop to the TV and check the guest Wi-Fi from a phone.
- 5
Put the QR code on screen, run the game for about fifteen minutes and show the results.
- 6
Switch the TV to a photo loop and let the borrel carry on.
FAQ
How long should a borrel game take?
Do colleagues need a login?
Can Dutch colleagues see Dutch on their phones?
Is there a ready-made Dutch quiz?
Can we use it for a leaving do?
Does the office need to buy 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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