PULTEVENT
Game show for events: 7 rounds that turn a room into a TV studio
A hotel ballroom on a Thursday in November. The finance team has just picked "Office Legends for 500", and their CFO is on his feet before I have finished reading the question. Two hours earlier he told me, quite firmly, that he does not do games. Now he is pointing at the screen and shouting the name of the intern who once set the kitchen microwave on fire. He is right. His table goes up by five hundred, and the sales team behind him groans like they have lost a real match.
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Planners ask me for "something like a TV game show" more than for anything else at company nights. They want the lights-and-music feeling, teams, a board, a winner. What usually stops them is the production: buzzers, scoring, someone backstage running the graphics.
PULTEVENT puts the whole studio in one laptop. The board, the lightning rounds, the scores and the finale all run from the host console onto the venue screen. Below are the seven rounds I build a corporate show from, and how to put them in order.
7 game show rounds that turn a ballroom into a TV studio
1 Opening titles
The show starts with a splash screen: the event's name, team names, photos of the contestants. Music up, lights down, the host walks on.
How to run it. Ask the client for one photo per team captain. Putting their faces on the big screen gets the first cheer before a single question.
It tells the room this is a show, not a quiz someone put together in the afternoon.
2 The category board
Topics across the top, values down the side. Teams choose a cell, the question opens on screen. Questions can be text, a photo, a video clip or a piece of music.
How to run it. Build categories about the company: its products, its history, its famous meetings. Keep one silly category for the teams that are losing.
Choosing a cell is a tiny act of strategy, and people love strategy when there's a crowd watching.
3 Lightning round: true or false
Short statements go up fast. Guests vote Believe or Don't believe on their phones, and the truth is revealed with a sound cue.
How to run it. Use it between the two halves of the board. It lets the whole room play, not only the team captains.
A game show needs a change of pace. This is the fast part between the thinking parts.
4 Timeline
Company milestones and world events, and the teams have to put them in the right order. The year the first office opened, the year the logo changed.
How to run it. Slip in one event everyone remembers and nobody can date. The logo change is usually it.
Anniversaries and milestone years practically write this round for you.
5 Running scoreboard
A small scoreboard sits in the corner of the screen through every round. The host adds points, and the totals build across the whole show.
How to run it. Say the scores out loud between rounds even though they are on screen. "Finance are pulling away" is better television than a number.
It keeps the losing teams interested, because they can see exactly how far they are behind.
6 Awards ceremony
The finale. Fun awards chosen from the stats, then third place, second, and the winner with fanfare and confetti. Every team gets something.
How to run it. Hand the trophy to the most senior person in the room and let them present it. The photographers will thank you.
Nobody leaves with nothing, but there's only one cup, and that's exactly the tension you want.
7 Closing credits
Credits roll on the big screen like at the end of a film: role headings in capitals, names under them. The organisers, the contestants, the people who carried the tables.
How to run it. Put the names of the event team in the credits. They never get thanked properly and they notice when they are.
It closes the show with warmth instead of a microphone switching off.
A studio on one laptop
Opening titles, the category board, the scoreboard and the finale all run from the browser. No crew backstage.
Teams, not individuals
Departments, tables or fundraising committees play as teams, so nobody stands alone under a spotlight.
Content about them
Questions, photos and video clips about the company or the cause, built by you before the night.
A real ending
Awards for every team, a winner with fanfare and confetti, then closing credits with the names of the people who made the evening.
How a corporate game show is structured
Mine usually run 45 to 60 minutes and fit between the main course and dessert. Titles, first half of the board, a lightning round, second half of the board, the timeline, then the finale. Scores are visible the whole time.
Six teams is the sweet spot. Fewer and it feels like a dinner party game; more than eight and the scoreboard can't be read from the back of the room. With a big company, group departments into six teams rather than running twenty.
Buzzers without buzzers
There is a "who's first" buzzer that runs on guests' phones, so each team captain can buzz in from the table. Some hosts still prefer the oldest system: teams raise a paddle and the host calls who was first. Both work. The paddle gives you more control of the rhythm; the phone buzzer ends the arguments.
For rounds where the whole room plays, guests answer on their own phones by scanning a QR code on the screen. No app, no login. The phones do need internet, either the venue wifi or their own mobile data. Check the signal in the ballroom before the show; there is no offline mode for the phone rounds.
Game shows for fundraisers
Charity nights suit this format well. Teams can be sponsor tables, questions can be about the cause, and the awards ceremony is a natural moment to thank the donors by name.
The credits are the part I would never skip at a fundraiser. Rolling the names of volunteers and sponsors on the big screen does more than any speech, and it costs you two minutes.
What the host needs to prepare
Questions are the real work. A board of five categories by five values is twenty-five questions, plus ten facts for the lightning round and a handful of timeline events. Build them in the console a few days before, with the client's help for anything company-specific.
Ask the client for photos early. A photo of the CEO at the first office party is worth a whole category. The ready-made content in the platform is mostly in Russian today, so for an English show plan to write your own questions.
Hybrid shows and remote teams
If some teams are dialling in, share the stage window in the video call. They see the board and the scores and play along on their phones.
Give remote teams a captain in the room if you can, someone who can speak for them when it's their turn to pick a cell.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, a host who has run weddings, company parties and birthdays since 2014: more than 500 events, and TOP 100 Awards best host in Moscow (2024) and Saint Petersburg (2023). He built the console for his own events first.
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How to put on a game show at a corporate event
- 1
Agree on the teams with the client and collect a photo of each team captain.
- 2
Write the board: five categories, five values each, plus lightning-round facts and timeline events.
- 3
Set up the splash screen with the event name and the credits with the organisers' names.
- 4
At the venue, connect the laptop to the screen and check sound and the phone signal.
- 5
Run titles, the board, the lightning round and the timeline, calling out scores between rounds.
- 6
Finish with the awards ceremony, the trophy handover and the closing credits.
FAQ
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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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