PULTEVENT
Oktoberfest party games: 7 rounds for a hall full of Dirndl and Lederhosen
A rented function room in Frankfurt, the Friday after the Munich tapping. Blue-and-white bunting from a discount shop, two long trestle tables, pretzels the size of a steering wheel and a colleague from Leeds wearing Lederhosen he bought online and never quite managed to buckle. The brass band on the speakers is a playlist. The projector fan is louder than it. Somebody asks what we are actually going to do for the next three hours, apart from drink.
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That question is the reason this page exists. An Oktoberfest party away from the Theresienwiese has the costumes, the beer and the sausages, and then a long stretch of evening with no tent, no fairground and no band. I have hosted plenty of these, for international offices in Germany and Austria, for sports clubs abroad, for expat groups who wanted one proper Bavarian night a year. What fills the gap is a handful of games everyone can join from their seat.
With PULTEVENT the host runs everything from a laptop browser, the games go up on a projector or TV, and guests join by scanning a QR code with their phones. No app, no sign-up. Their phones need internet, which in a cellar Stube is worth checking the week before.
7 rounds for an Oktoberfest night, from the tapping to the last dance
1 The tapping splash screen
Before anyone is seated, the screen shows a photo of the hall or a ready-made background with your caption: the company name, the date and a big O'zapft is. When the first barrel is tapped you fire the confetti and fanfare on top.
How to run it. Get the boss to do the tapping with a wooden mallet. Count down on screen, hit the effect at the first hiss.
It gives the evening a starting gun. People stop chatting in the doorway and find a bench.
2 Wiesn quiz from the phones
Ten questions about Bavaria and the festival: how many litres in a Mass, what the bow on a Dirndl apron means on the left and on the right, which city in Austria has its own Wiesn, what a Hendl is. Every table answers on one phone per person.
How to run it. Write it yourself in the quiz builder. Check every fact against the official festival site, not a forum.
The Germans in the room get to show off, the newcomers learn something, and nobody minds losing.
3 Stein-holding on the scoreboard
The classic arm-out contest with a full one-litre mug, done for real at the front of the room. The screen does not judge it, it keeps the score per table and shows the running totals.
How to run it. Fill the mugs with water. Heroic effort, fewer spills on the parquet.
It turns a pub trick into a team event. Suddenly the whole table has an opinion on technique.
4 Horse Race
Every guest gets a horse on the big screen and gallops it from their phone. The hall sounds like a real track within ten seconds.
How to run it. Run two heats and a final. Put the finalists' names on screen before the last race.
It fits the fairground mood better than anything sit-down, and it needs zero explanation.
5 Brass-band karaoke battle
Two tables, one microphone each, a drinking song or a schlager chorus. The room votes for the winner from their phones and the bars grow on screen.
How to run it. Choose songs with a chorus even non-German speakers can shout. Put the lyrics on screen.
Oktoberfest is really a singing festival with beer attached. This is where the benches start swaying.
6 Guess the colleague in Tracht
Before the party, collect photos of guests in costume from past years (or in their grandparents' old hats). On screen, a cropped detail: the knee socks, the brooch, the moustache. Phones guess who it is.
How to run it. Ask people privately, and only use photos they sent you themselves.
Mixed departments meet each other through the costume jokes. A good one for the second hour.
7 The raffle and the medals
Guests enter the raffle by scanning a QR code, the draw runs on screen, and the team scoreboard ends with an awards ceremony: the winning table, the best Dirndl, the Lederhosen that fought back.
How to run it. Keep the prizes on theme: a gingerbread heart, a proper stein, a day off.
It closes the programme properly so the dancing can take over.
A quiz in the language of the room
Write your own Wiesn questions in English, German or both. Each guest's phone buttons follow their phone language.
Long tables become teams
Table one against table two, the scoreboard keeps count and hands out medals at the end.
Races for the whole hall
Horse Race and Drift Arena put a dozen people on the screen at once, steering from their phones.
One laptop, one screen
Everything runs from the host's browser. Music, quiz, raffle and breaks sit in the same console.
An Oktoberfest party is mostly about benches
In Munich the tent does the work. Long tables, strangers sitting shoulder to shoulder, the band climbing onto the stage for Ein Prosit every twenty minutes or so. Recreate the benches and half your job is done: people who sit at the same table become a team without being asked.
So the first decision is the floor plan. Long tables facing the screen at an angle, not round banquet tables with half the chairs turned away. If the venue insists on rounds, number them and play table against table anyway.
Writing the quiz without embarrassing yourself
Half your guests may have grown up with this festival. They will notice a wrong answer. Stick to things you can check: the Mass holds one litre, the festival starts in September and runs into early October, the first barrel is tapped by the Mayor of Munich with the words O'zapft is. Keep the folklore questions light and let the local colleagues argue about the rest.
The ready-made quiz decks inside PULTEVENT are mostly in Russian for now, so for a Wiesn quiz you write your own questions in the builder. It takes an evening. Mix picture questions (a pretzel, a pair of knee socks, a gingerbread heart) with text ones so the people who read slowly after two litres still get a chance.
English host, German room, or the other way round
A lot of Oktoberfest parties I get asked about are in companies where the working language is English and half the staff are German or Austrian. The console runs in English. Each guest's phone follows that phone's language for the buttons and instructions, so the Austrian sales team and the Portuguese developers both see a familiar interface. Your own questions appear as you wrote them, so write them in the shared language or put both versions in one line.
"Do I answer in German?"
"Answer in whatever you like. You're only pressing B."
The Austrian version
In Vienna the autumn beer festival has its own Wiesn in the Prater, and plenty of Austrian firms run their own Tracht day. The vocabulary shifts a little (a Krügerl rather than a Mass for a half-litre, for instance), but the games are the same. If your guests come from both countries, one quiz round on the differences is a safe way to start a friendly argument.
Pacing a three-hour evening
Start with the tapping and food. Let people eat before you ask anything of them. The quiz goes in after the first round of pretzels, then a race, then a break with a loop screen and a countdown so the smokers know when to come back. Karaoke and the costume round in the second half, raffle and medals last. After that, turn the screen into a slow slideshow of the evening's photos and hand the room to the playlist.
Seven rounds is the full version. For a two-hour after-work Wiesn, pick four: quiz, Horse Race, karaoke battle, medals.
Before you commit
The demo is free for 3 days and asks for no card. Build the quiz, load a costume photo or two, run a Horse Race with your flatmates on the telly. If it works for you, the full version is a one-time licence with no subscription; the current 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 run Oktoberfest party games on a big screen
- 1
Book a room with long tables and a projector or TV with an HDMI input you can reach.
- 2
Write the Wiesn quiz in the builder and collect costume photos from guests privately.
- 3
Set the splash screen with the date and your caption, and load the karaoke tracks.
- 4
On the day, connect the laptop, check the Wi-Fi from a guest's phone and test the QR code.
- 5
Tap the barrel with confetti on screen, feed people, then start the quiz by tables.
- 6
Run the race, the karaoke battle and the costume round, then close with the raffle and medals.
FAQ
Is there a ready-made Oktoberfest quiz in English?
Will German-speaking guests see German on their phones?
Do guests need an app?
How many people can play the Horse Race at once?
Can we run it for colleagues working from home?
Do I need a professional host?
What does it cost?
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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