PULTEVENT
QR code games for events: 7 formats guests join by scanning the screen
Gala dinner, second day of a sales conference. Thirty round tables, ten chairs each, a numbered stand in the middle of every one. The projector behind the stage shows a single square code. At table 14, a man in a lanyard holds his phone up for his neighbour, who never learned how to scan anything. Within a minute the whole table is in. At table 22 they are arguing about whether to call themselves "Table 22" or something ruder. That argument is the event starting to work.
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I have hosted enough conferences to know what kills audience games at scale: the app. Ask three hundred people to download something, make an account and confirm an email, and you lose half the room before the first question. A QR code on the screen skips all of that. Guests point a camera at it, the game opens in the phone browser, and they are playing.
PULTEVENT is built around that one code. It stays the same for the whole evening, so a guest scans once and takes part in everything you run afterwards: the quiz, the vote, the raffle. Below are seven formats that work at tables, plus the network checklist I send to every venue.
7 QR code games for events, from the welcome drink to the prize draw
1 Check-in at the tables
The code goes up during the welcome speech. Guests scan, type a first and last name, and they are in the event room for the night.
How to run it. Show the code three times: at the start, after the main course and before the prize draw. Latecomers need a second chance.
Full names matter later, when the raffle winner has to be found among three hundred people in dark suits.
2 Table quiz
Questions on the projector, four options on every phone. Correct answers score for the table of whoever tapped them, so the whole table leans in over one question.
How to run it. Write questions about the company, the city or the year. Answers that aren't on the internet keep people off search engines.
It turns a room of departments that don't talk to each other into thirty small teams that very much want to beat table 7.
3 Believe it or not
A statement goes on the screen: a fact about the company, the speaker or the host city. Guests tap Believe or Don't believe, then you reveal the truth with a sound cue.
How to run it. Mix one obvious fact with one that sounds made up and is true. That second one is where the gasps come from.
Quick, cheap on attention, and it works even at tables where half the people have had two glasses of wine.
4 The room decides
Two to six options on the projector, bars growing as phones vote. You can run it anonymously so nobody's name reaches even you.
How to run it. Use it for things the room actually cares about: best team name, which band plays the encore, where next year's conference goes.
People take a vote more seriously when the result is shown to everyone at once. It gives the evening a shared moment.
5 QR raffle
Everyone who joined gets a three-digit ticket on their phone. You press draw, the drum spins to a drum roll, and the winning number fills the screen.
How to run it. Put the draw near the end and announce it early. It is the best reason there is for people to join before dessert.
No paper tickets under plates, no hat going round, no arguments about who had which stub.
6 Table league
A team scoreboard on the projector adds up points from every game. At the end it runs an awards ceremony with fun prizes before the winner.
How to run it. With thirty tables, group them into six or eight zones. More than eight teams can't be read from the back.
The results file is useful afterwards: planners can attach it to the event report for the client.
7 Messages to the big screen
Guests send short messages and photos from their phones. They land on your console, signed with the sender's name, and you pick which go on the projector.
How to run it. Let it run during dinner and put up the best ones between speeches. Skip anything you would not show the CEO.
It is the answer to the client who asks "what if someone writes something awful?" Nothing gets shown without your click.
One scan per evening
The code opens an event room. Whatever you launch next appears on the guest's phone by itself, with no second scan.
Nothing to install
No app, no account, no email. The page opens in whatever browser the phone already has.
Tables become teams
Seat numbers make ready-made teams, and a scoreboard on the projector keeps the table league all night.
You approve the screen
Messages and photos from guests come to your console first. Nothing reaches the projector until you send it.
What happens at the tables in the first minute
The code goes up. About a third of the room scans immediately. Another third waits to see what the first third does. The rest need help, and at every table there is one person who becomes the helper without being asked. Let them. Do not talk over this minute with a long explanation; one sentence is enough: "Camera, code, your full name, and you're in."
Then launch something small straight away, a single vote or one quiz question. People who have just scanned want to see that it did something. If the first thing they see is a waiting screen for ten minutes, they put the phone away and you have to win them back.
Venue wifi: the checklist I send every time
Every phone game needs internet on the guest's phone. There is no offline mode, and I would never promise a client one. So the questions go to the venue a week before, in writing.
Is there guest wifi, and how does it log people in: open, password, or a sign-in page? How is mobile signal inside the hall itself, not at the entrance? Is the room below ground? How many devices can the network hold at once, and has anyone tested it with a full house?
Guests don't have to share one network, which helps. Each phone can use its own mobile data, so a weak venue wifi isn't fatal if the mobile signal is good. On the day, walk to the table furthest from the stage and load a page. If it crawls there, it will crawl for them.
Phones in pockets, people on the dance floor
Conferences are long and phones go dark. A guest's place in the event room is held for ten minutes after they drop off, so a phone that goes into a pocket during the dancing doesn't lose its raffle ticket. When it comes back, the guest is still in.
That matters for the draw. Nobody wants to explain to a sales director why his ticket vanished because his screen locked.
Where QR games fit in a conference programme
Not during the keynote, and not two in a row. A guest who spends twenty minutes staring at a phone stops being at your event. Alternate: a phone game, then something on stage, then phones again.
The pattern that works for me at a gala: check-in and a short vote during the welcome, the table quiz after the main course, Believe it or not between speeches, the raffle and the awards at the end. The feed runs quietly in the background the whole time.
Hybrid and remote guests
If part of the audience is watching online, share the stage window in whatever video call you are using. Remote guests scan the code off their own screen and play on their phones next to the people in the hall, on the same scoreboard.
Allow a little extra time on quiz questions for them. Video calls run a few seconds behind the room.
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 run QR code games at an event
- 1
A week before, send the venue the wifi and mobile signal questions and get answers in writing.
- 2
Build your quiz and True or False facts about the company or the city in the console.
- 3
At the venue, connect the laptop to the projector and test the connection from the furthest table.
- 4
Show the QR code during the welcome and ask guests to join with their full names.
- 5
Run the table quiz, votes and Believe it or not between the programme items.
- 6
Finish with the QR raffle and the awards ceremony on the team scoreboard.
FAQ
Do guests need an app or an account?
Does it work without internet?
Do all guests have to be on the same wifi?
Can people see each other's answers?
What if someone posts something inappropriate?
Is it available in English?
How is it priced?
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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