PULTEVENT
Small business holiday party ideas: 7 games for a team of 5 to 30
A dental practice in Ohio, the Friday before Christmas, twenty past five. The last patient has gone, the waiting room chairs have been pushed against the wall and the TV that normally plays the aquarium loop is showing a photo of the practice manager dressed as an elf in 2019. Eleven people, two pizzas, a tray of cookies somebody's mother sent in. The hygienist who said she would only stay for one drink is holding her phone with both hands, because her car is in second place on the screen and the receptionist is catching up.
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Big companies hire a venue, a DJ and an events team. A business of nine people has the owner, a credit card and a Friday evening. The small party is harder than it looks: everyone knows everyone, there's no crowd to hide in, and if two people stand in the kitchen talking about work for an hour, that's a fifth of the party.
What works for a small team is a short run of games on one screen that everybody plays at the same time. With PULTEVENT the owner, or whoever volunteers, runs it from a laptop plugged into the office TV or the TV in a restaurant's private room. The team scans a QR code and plays from their own phones in the browser, nothing to install, as long as those phones have internet.
7 games for a small business holiday party
1 Guess the colleague
Before the party, everyone sends you one fact nobody at work knows: a childhood nickname, a strange first job, a country they've lived in. On the night the fact goes on screen and the team votes on phones for who it belongs to.
How to run it. Collect the facts privately by email a week out, and give people a nudge rather than a deadline. Two or three weird ones make the round.
In a small business people work side by side for years and never find out that the bookkeeper used to race motocross. This round finds out.
2 The year in review quiz
Ten questions about your own year: the month the new coffee machine broke, how many boxes went out on the busiest day, the name of the customer who sent flowers. Everyone answers on their phone and the scores go up after each question.
How to run it. Mix easy questions with a few only the old hands will know. Include at least one question the owner gets wrong.
It's a way of saying thank you for the year without making a speech about it. People remember the stories behind the answers.
3 Staff awards, voted on the night
Categories like Best Phone Voice, Most Likely to Fix the Printer, Calmest in a Crisis. The team votes anonymously from their phones, bars climb on the TV, and you reveal each winner when the vote closes.
How to run it. Write categories where winning is always a compliment. A small team has nowhere to hide from a bad joke on Monday.
Awards chosen by colleagues mean more than awards chosen by the boss, and they cost nothing.
4 A raffle with a QR ticket
Everyone scans the code and gets a ticket number on their phone. The draw runs on the big screen, one prize at a time: a half day off, first pick of vacation dates, a parking spot for January, a bottle of something decent.
How to run it. Time-based prizes work brilliantly in a small business and cost less than gadgets. Check with your accountant what counts as a taxable gift where you are.
The draw gives a small party a few minutes of pure suspense, and nobody feels picked over.
5 Drift Arena on the TV
Up to twelve cars on a 3D track, each one steered from someone's phone. Short rounds of a minute or two, winners go through to a final, the loser buys coffee on Monday.
How to run it. Put the people who swear they are bad at games in the first heat. They are never as bad as they claim.
It's the one game that gets the quiet ones shouting. With a team of twelve, literally everyone is on the track.
6 A karaoke battle between departments
The front desk against the back office, the kitchen against the floor staff. Each side sings one song to a backing track and the rest of the room votes for the winner from their phones.
How to run it. Always make it a group performance. Nobody in a team of fifteen should have to sing alone in front of their boss.
It flattens the hierarchy for ten minutes. The owner singing badly in a group is worth more than any bonus speech.
7 End credits with everyone's name
The party ends like a film: a scrolling list of everyone who worked there this year, with a line each, over music. Then the lights come up.
How to run it. Give each person a job title that's slightly more heroic than their real one. "Head of Keeping Us Open, Maria Lopez."
A small team rarely sees its own names together. It's the moment people get their phones out to film the screen.
Made for a room of 5 to 30
Everyone plays at once, so nobody stands at the edge watching colleagues have fun.
Your own year, your own jokes
The quiz and the awards are about your business and your people, written by you.
No venue required
The office, the shop floor after closing or a private room with a TV. A laptop and a cable do the rest.
Bought once
A one-time licence you can use again for the summer barbecue and every leaving do.
Why small parties are harder than big ones
At a company party of two hundred, you can put on a band and let people find their own corners. At a party of twelve there are no corners. If the evening has no shape, it turns into the same conversations people have at lunch, only with drinks, and it's over by eight.
Games give a small room a shared focus for an hour. After that, the conversation is different, because now everybody has a story from tonight to talk about instead of the backlog.
Where to hold it
Your own premises are underrated. The office, the salon after closing, the workshop with a trestle table and a string of lights. You already have Wi-Fi and a wall for the screen, and nobody has to get home from a venue across town.
If you'd rather go out, book a private room in a restaurant or a pub and ask two questions when you call: is there a TV with an HDMI input you can use, and does the room get a decent phone signal or Wi-Fi. A back room with thick walls and no connection will quietly sink the phone games.
Who runs the games
In most small businesses it's the owner or the office manager, and that works well. Running it is clicking through a laptop, reading questions and doing the commentary. If the owner is shy, give the laptop to whoever is loudest and let the owner hand out the prizes.
"Do I have to do voices?"
"No. You have to read the scores out and look surprised."
A schedule for a three-hour evening
Food first. Let people eat and talk for the first forty-five minutes while the year-in-photos slideshow runs on the TV. Then Guess the Colleague and the quiz, sitting down. Awards next, while people are still paying attention. Drift Arena and the karaoke battle when the energy is highest, raffle after that, credits to finish.
That's about an hour and a quarter of games, with plenty of room either side. Resist adding more. A small party ends best when people leave saying they'd have stayed longer.
Staff who work remotely or couldn't come
Small businesses often have a bookkeeper who works from home, a salesperson on the road or a part-timer who's away for the holidays. Start a video call on the laptop and share the stage window. They follow the screen from wherever they are and join the quiz and the vote from their own phones by scanning the code off their monitor.
Plus-ones and kids
If partners are invited, they won't know the in-jokes. Keep one or two rounds that anyone can play, such as Drift Arena and the raffle, and give partners their own award category if you want to be kind about it. If there are children, the car race and the karaoke battle work at any age, and kids are usually the fastest to scan a code.
Cost and a test run
You can try everything with the free 3-day demo, and it doesn't ask for a card. Build your quiz and your awards, load the photos and run a round of Drift Arena with a colleague one lunchtime. The full version is a one-time licence, no subscription, so the same setup covers the summer party, anniversaries and leaving dos. See pultevent.ru/en for the price.
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 small business holiday party on one TV
- 1
Pick the date and place, and check there's a TV with HDMI and a working connection for phones.
- 2
A week out, collect one secret fact from each person and a handful of photos from the year.
- 3
Write the year-in-review quiz and the award categories, and decide the raffle prizes.
- 4
Set up the credits with everyone's name and a slightly heroic job title.
- 5
On the night, let people eat first, then put the QR code on the TV and start with Guess the Colleague.
- 6
Run the quiz, awards, Drift Arena, karaoke and raffle, and finish on the credits.
FAQ
Is it worth it for only six or seven people?
Does everyone need a smartphone?
Can we hold it in a restaurant?
Do we need a professional host?
Are there ready-made questions?
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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