PULTEVENT
Emcee games list: 8 families, 30 formats, and when each one works
An accountancy firm's summer party, a rooftop bar, seven in the evening. Eighty people, most of them still holding the same glass they collected at the door, standing in the clusters they arrived in: partners by the rail, graduates by the snacks, the IT team in a corner looking at one phone. The managing partner leans over and says, "They're a quiet lot. Don't expect much." By nine, the IT team had won the horse race and were doing a lap of honor round the bar.
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No game is good in general. A game is good for a particular room at a particular minute of the night. A quiz that works brilliantly after dinner will die at the door, and a dance battle that saves the last hour will be a disaster during the starters. The hosting skill is choosing, and choosing needs a list you know by heart.
Here are thirty formats I actually use, grouped into eight families by what they do to a room. Most run on PULTEVENT from a laptop browser to the venue screen, with guests playing from their own phones via a QR code (no app, but their phones need internet). A few need nothing but your voice.
8 families of emcee games, 30 formats in total
1 Openers (4 formats)
Guess the Guest: facts about people in the room, guests guess who. The guest wheel, spinning through names for a harmless first question. A live vote on something trivial, like who traveled the farthest. Stand-up-if, spoken, with no tech at all.
How to run it. Keep openers under five minutes. People are still arriving, and latecomers should be able to join mid-game.
They get strangers looking at each other and laughing before anyone has had to commit to anything.
2 Quizzes (4 formats)
A classic multiple-choice quiz answered from phones. A board game-show format with categories and points (Super Smarts). True or False, quick and good for mixed ages. Timeline, where teams put events in the right order.
How to run it. Write the questions about the people or the company in the room. Built-in decks are mostly Russian today, so the quiz builder is where your English quiz lives.
A quiz gives a seated room a shared goal and a scoreboard, which is the fastest way to make tables into teams.
3 Photo and video rounds (4 formats)
Guess the Photo with baby pictures. Video greetings from people who couldn't come. Whose desk is it, with photos of workspaces. A slideshow reveal of old team or family photos with captions.
How to run it. Collect the material through one trusted person, privately, at least a week ahead.
They bring the quiet guests in: nobody needs to be quick or clever to enjoy a baby photo.
4 Music games (4 formats)
Karaoke battle between teams, with the room voting from phones. Fake karaoke, where a singer's own voice is played back without the music. Name the intro, with you playing the first seconds from the built-in DJ deck. A spoken sing-back, where the room finishes a chorus you start.
How to run it. Choose songs the oldest and the youngest guest both know. That list is shorter than you'd think, so build it in advance.
Music games bridge the gap between the games part of the night and the dancing part.
5 Movement games (3 formats)
Dance battle, with the room voting from phones. Charades with the word shown on screen to the audience and the player guessing. The task randomizer, dealing out small challenges to whoever it picks.
How to run it. Choose volunteers who have been loud all evening. Never pull up someone who has been hiding at the back.
People are already standing when the game ends. Your DJ will thank you.
6 Big-screen 3D games (5 formats)
Drift Arena, up to twelve cars steered from phones. Horse Race, the whole room cheering on one screen. Decorate the Tree, everyone adding a decoration from their phone, great at Christmas. Fun Flight. Bowling.
How to run it. Do a practice round first. The second round is always twice as loud as the first.
They look like a big production and fill a room without needing a single volunteer on stage.
7 Voting and awards (3 formats)
Live voting for superlatives, like most likely to reply-all. A team scoreboard running all night that ends in a podium ceremony. A QR raffle for the prizes.
How to run it. Keep superlatives kind. The laugh should be with the person, not at them.
A podium gives a corporate night its ending and the photographer the photo the client wanted.
8 Closers (3 formats)
End credits on the big screen naming everyone who made the night. A final video message saved for the end. A live vote for the last song of the night.
How to run it. Agree the closer with the client and the venue so the lights come up exactly when the credits finish.
A night with a clear ending is remembered as a night that went well.
Openers break up the clusters
Low effort, high recognition. Nobody has to stand up.
Quizzes settle a room
Best after food, when people are seated and ready to compete.
Movement games end on the floor
Use them when you want people standing and near the music.
Closers give the night an ending
A clear finish beats a room that slowly empties.
The curve of an evening
Most events follow the same energy curve: cautious at the start, settled over food, a dip after the main course, a rise toward dancing, a peak, and a tail. Each family on the list fits a part of that curve. Openers at the start, quizzes and photos over food, 3D games or music in the dip, movement right before the dance floor, voting and closers at the end.
If you remember one thing, remember the dip. Twenty minutes after the main course, people go heavy and quiet. That's where a horse race earns its place.
Choosing by room, not by favorite
Every host has a favorite game. Mine was a dance battle, and for a couple of years I forced it into rooms that didn't want it. A room of senior lawyers will play a quiz for an hour and refuse to dance. A room of twenty-five-year-olds will dance and treat a quiz like homework. Ask the client who the guests are before you choose anything.
"They're mostly engineers."
"Then they're getting a timeline round and a car race."
How many games in one night
Fewer than you think. For a three-hour party, three or four games of ten to fifteen minutes each is plenty, plus a closer. The rest of the time belongs to food, speeches, music and conversation. A night that is all games feels like an exam.
Keep two extra formats ready but unplanned. If the room is flying, you won't need them. If it isn't, you'll be glad they're one click away.
Corporate rooms and private rooms
At company events, team formats win: tables compete, the scoreboard runs, the leadership gets gently mocked in a live vote. Avoid anything that singles out a junior employee. At private parties, personal formats win: the guest of honor's baby photos, a quiz about them, video messages from family abroad.
Mixed-language rooms are easier than they used to be. Guest screens follow the language of each guest's phone (the host can switch it off), while the questions you write stay as written.
Formats to avoid
Anything that asks people to reveal something they didn't choose to reveal. Anything that relies on physical contact between strangers. Anything longer than fifteen minutes without a break. And any game that needs a phone when the Wi-Fi is weak; test first, and fall back to spoken versions if guests can't get online.
Building your own list in the console
The free 3-day demo, no card required, is enough to try most of these families on your own TV. If they fit your work, the full version is a one-time license with no subscription; the price is 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 pick games for a specific event
- 1
Ask the client who the guests are: age range, how well they know each other, languages.
- 2
Sketch the night's energy curve against the timings you've been given.
- 3
Pick one opener, one seated game, one game for the post-dinner dip and one closer.
- 4
Add one movement game only if dancing follows.
- 5
Build each chosen format in the console and keep two spares ready.
- 6
Test the QR code and Wi-Fi at the venue before you commit to phone games.
FAQ
What's the safest opener for a room of strangers?
Which games work for all ages?
Do all thirty formats need phones?
Can I run a board-style game show?
How long should one game last?
Is there a trial version?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
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