PULTEVENT
Lip sync battle party: 7 rounds, from miming to the moment of truth
A leaving do in the upstairs room of a pub in Bristol. Gemma from accounts, eleven years at the firm, has a hairbrush for a microphone and is giving a power ballad everything she's got. Her colleagues are on their chairs. She thinks the music is carrying her. It is, for now. When the song ends I say, "Let's hear that one more time," and press a button. The backing track has gone. What comes out of the speakers is Gemma, alone, recorded by the mic in her hand, hitting the big note roughly a mile away from where she thought it was.
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She laughed the loudest. That's the only rule of this game: pick people who will. Gemma had asked for a send-off nobody would forget, and her team had told me she was the office's biggest karaoke fan. She got exactly what she wanted.
This page covers two related formats you can run from PULTEVENT. The first is a straight lip sync battle: performers mime or sing along to a track, and the room votes from their phones. The second is fake karaoke: the platform secretly records the singer's voice without the music, then plays it back in a moment of truth. Voting needs guests' phones online. Fake karaoke needs only your laptop and a microphone plugged into it.
7 rounds for a lip sync battle party
1 Classic lip sync, room votes
Two performers mime to the same song or to one song each. When both have finished, the room votes on their phones and the result goes up on the screen.
How to run it. Give each performer a chorus, not the whole song. Ninety seconds is plenty for a mime, and the second half of a song is always weaker.
Everyone in the room has a say, including the people who would never go near a microphone.
2 Fake karaoke: the moment of truth
A volunteer sings along to a backing track, confident, with gestures. The platform records only the voice. When the song ends, the music goes silent and the room hears how it really sounded.
How to run it. Announce ordinary karaoke. Don't mention the recording. The surprise is the whole format.
Hearing someone's unaccompanied voice is funny to nearly everyone, including the singer, and it's the round people describe the next morning.
3 The duet trap
Two singers, one of them in on the secret. The one holding the recording mic gets the moment of truth, the other one gets to watch it happen.
How to run it. Brief the accomplice before the party. Their job is to sing quietly and let the other one carry the song.
The accomplice's face during the playback is often better than the recording itself.
4 Team karaoke battle
Teams send singers in turn, guests vote from their phones and the screen keeps the score across several rounds.
How to run it. Let each team pick its singer for each round. The strategic choices are part of the fun.
It turns a karaoke session into a competition with a winner, which keeps the non-singers watching.
5 The boss round
At an office party, the manager who volunteered (and only one who volunteered) performs a lip sync to a song the team picked. The room votes on a score out of five.
How to run it. Agree the song with the boss in advance. Surprises are for the team, not for the person with the power to cancel the party.
A manager who can laugh at himself on stage buys more goodwill in three minutes than a year of team emails.
6 Costume box round
A box of wigs, sunglasses and feather boas by the stage. Each performer gets thirty seconds to dress before the track starts. The room votes on performance and costume.
How to run it. Run two votes: best performance and best costume. Two winners means twice the cheering.
Costumes make shy people brave. Someone in a pink wig is no longer themselves.
7 The encore reel
At the end of the night, replay the best moment-of-truth recording once more before the last dance, with the singer's blessing.
How to run it. Recordings stay in the section until you reload it. If the DJ or the couple want a copy, download it straight away.
It closes the loop of the evening, and the singer gets a second, even louder round of applause.
The room votes
Guests scan a QR code and pick the winner of each round on their phones. Bars grow on the big screen.
The moment of truth
Fake karaoke records only the singer's voice. Afterwards you play it back with the music silent.
You choose what's played
Nothing plays back automatically. You decide which recording goes to the speakers, and which quietly doesn't.
Your own tracks
Load backing tracks that suit the crowd, from boy-band hits to power ballads.
Setting up the microphone
Fake karaoke records through the laptop the platform runs on. So the microphone plugs into that computer, not into a separate mixer or a DJ controller. A simple USB mic or a wireless mic receiver connected to the laptop works.
Test it on yourself before the guests arrive. Sing a verse along to a backing track and play it back. If you can hear the music in your recording, turn on the setting that removes music from the recording and try again. Do this during setup, not with a hundred people watching.
Choosing who sings
Never spring fake karaoke on someone who hates singing in public. The format works because the singer laughs along; it turns sour the moment they don't. Ask the organizer who the room's natural show-off is, and start with that person.
After one confident volunteer has had their moment of truth, others step up. Once the room knows it can only get so bad, the people who swore they would never sing start queuing.
Running the moment of truth
When the song ends, keep the singer at the front. Thank them, then say you'd like the room to hear it again. Press play on the recording.
"Is that me?"
"That's you."
Let the room laugh for as long as it wants, then bring the singer back in with a real round of applause. Your tone is what makes it a warm joke rather than an ambush. If a recording is genuinely unkind to someone, skip it. You're in charge of what plays.
Voting from phones
For the lip sync rounds, guests scan the QR code once at the start of the evening. After each pair performs, you open a vote with the performers' names as options. The bars grow on the screen as the votes come in, and you close the vote when you're ready to announce.
Guests' phones need internet for this. In a basement or a marquee, check the signal early. If voting isn't possible, fall back on applause, which is louder and less accurate.
Where it fits in the evening
After dinner, before the dance floor opens. People have had a drink, but not so many that nobody can hold a hairbrush. Three lip sync pairs, one fake karaoke, and a vote for the champion take about thirty minutes.
If you're running teams across the whole evening, the karaoke battle scores go into the team scoreboard and the awards ceremony at the end.
Trying it out
Start the free 3-day demo, no card needed, plug in a mic and record yourself singing in the kitchen. It's humbling, and it's the best way to understand the format. The full version is a one-time license with no subscription; pricing is at 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 lip sync battle with fake karaoke
- 1
Load backing tracks that suit the crowd and pick your volunteers with the organizer.
- 2
Plug the microphone into the laptop that runs the platform.
- 3
Record a test and remove the music from the recording if it bleeds in.
- 4
Put the QR code on screen so guests can vote from their phones.
- 5
Run the lip sync pairs with a vote after each, then one fake karaoke with its moment of truth.
- 6
Crown the champion and download any recordings you want to keep.
FAQ
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