PULTEVENT
Village hall quiz night: 7 parts of a fundraiser that runs itself
Friday, a quarter to seven, a village hall in Wiltshire. The urn is on, the heaters are coughing into life, and the PTA treasurer is counting cash floats on a trestle table under the notice board. Twelve tables of six have been laid out with bowls of crisps and a sheet of paper saying the team name goes here. Someone has phoned the chip shop with an order for seventy-two portions. And the quizmaster, a dad from Year 4 who agreed to this in a weak moment in September, is plugging a laptop into the hall projector for the first time.
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Quiz nights are the workhorse of British fundraising. Schools, churches, scout groups, cricket clubs and village hall committees all run them, because they are cheap to put on and people genuinely enjoy them. The bit that wears volunteers out is not the questions. It is the marking. Twelve answer sheets per round, a helper with a calculator in the kitchen, and a long pause before every scoreboard update while the room gets restless.
I run quiz nights on PULTEVENT to get rid of that pause. The questions go on the hall projector from a laptop. Each table's captain scans a QR code on the screen and answers from a phone, in the browser, nothing to download. Scores are counted as you go. The captains' phones need internet, the hall Wi-Fi or mobile data, and in a village it is worth walking round the hall with your phone the week before.
7 parts of a fundraising quiz night
1 The main rounds
Five or six rounds of ten questions each: general knowledge, sport, music, food, history. Question on the projector, four answers on the captains' phones, a countdown on each.
How to run it. Write the questions in the quiz builder a week ahead. Ask two other parents to read them and catch mistakes.
The same quiz you would read out on paper, minus the marking, the queries and the handwriting.
2 The village picture round
Close-up photos of things around the village: the war memorial, a gate, the sign on the post office, the weathervane on the church. Teams name the place.
How to run it. Take the photos yourself on a Sunday walk. Crop them tight.
It is the round everyone talks about afterwards, and newcomers learn something about where they live.
3 The board final
A board of categories and values on the screen. The lowest-placed table picks first, questions get harder as the values go up.
How to run it. Make one category local and one about the school or the charity you are raising money for.
It narrows the gap at the end, so more tables are still in it when the final scores go up.
4 Best team name
Everyone votes from their phones for the best team name of the night. Results go up on the screen as bars.
How to run it. Run it straight after the first round, when people are still settling in.
The team with the worst quiz knowledge often has the best name. Give them something to win.
5 The raffle
Ticket buyers are registered, the draw spins names on the projector and lands on a winner. Prizes donated by local businesses and parents.
How to run it. Check the rules for your kind of raffle with the committee before you start selling. Thank each donor by name as their prize comes up.
Local businesses donate again next year when they hear their name read out in front of eighty people.
6 The interval horse race
A 3D horse race on the projector during the interval, players tapping from their phones to drive their horse on.
How to run it. Keep it just for fun, and run it while the fish and chips are being handed out.
It stops the interval dragging, and children who came with their parents love it.
7 The podium
At the end, the team scoreboard turns into an awards ceremony: a wooden spoon, then third, second and the winners, with confetti on the screen.
How to run it. Announce how much the night has raised just before the winners. It gets the biggest cheer.
A proper finish sends people home happy and ready to book a table next time.
No marking in the kitchen
Phone answers score themselves. The helpers can sell raffle tickets instead.
Scoreboard after every round
Tables see where they stand, which keeps the competition going.
Your village, your questions
A local round about the school, the pub and the parish council.
Raffle built in
Names spin on the projector, no ticket stubs in a biscuit tin.
Tables, tickets and teams
Most village and school quizzes sell tickets per head and ask people to form tables of six or eight. Keep a list of who is on which table and the name of each captain. Ask captains to charge their phones before they come, and to scan the code as soon as they sit down.
People who come alone or in a pair can be put together on a mixed table. Do not skip this. Some of the best nights come from a table of strangers who end up winning.
Food and drink
A fish and chip supper in the interval is a tradition in many places, ordered in advance and collected by a volunteer with a big car. Others ask people to bring a picnic. Many village quizzes are bring your own bottle. If you plan to sell drinks, speak to the hall committee about what licence you need, well in advance.
The hall itself
Village halls vary. Some have a ceiling projector and a screen, some have an old telly on a trolley, some have a white wall. Borrow a projector from the school if you have to. Check the HDMI connection and the Wi-Fi on a visit, not on the night. If the Wi-Fi is weak, captains can use mobile data. If there is no signal at all, the phone rounds will not work, and you need a paper plan B.
Bring an extension lead. There is never a socket where the laptop needs to go.
The volunteers
You need a quizmaster, someone at the laptop if the quizmaster is not comfortable with it, someone on the door and someone selling raffle tickets. That is four people, not the usual seven. With phone scoring you lose the whole marking team.
"What do I do with the calculator?"
"Sell raffle tickets with it."
Questions for a mixed room
A PTA quiz will have parents in their thirties and forties, grandparents and a few older children. Mix eras in each round: a question on a 1970s hit, one on something current. Keep a round the children can answer, because they will be proud when their table's score goes up.
Ready-made quiz decks inside the platform are mostly in Russian for now, so all your questions will be your own. For a village quiz that is exactly right.
Trying it before quiz night
The 3-day demo is free and takes no card details. Build two rounds and test them at the next PTA meeting on the school projector, with committee members as captains. If the committee likes it, the full version is paid for once, with no subscription, which suits a charity budget. See 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 village hall quiz night fundraiser
- 1
Book the hall, sell tickets and collect raffle prizes from local businesses.
- 2
Write the rounds, including a local picture round and the board final.
- 3
Visit the hall to check the projector, HDMI and Wi-Fi.
- 4
On the night, set up early and have each captain scan the QR code.
- 5
Run the rounds, with the raffle and horse race in the interval.
- 6
Announce the total raised, then the podium.
FAQ
How many tables can play?
What if a captain's phone dies?
Can older people join in?
Does it handle the money for tickets?
Can we use it again for next year's quiz?
What does it cost the PTA?
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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