How To Run A Pub Quiz At Home: Questions, Rounds And Easy Shortcuts

A home quiz lives or dies on preparation, and most hosts massively overprepare in the wrong places. Six rounds is plenty. Forty-eight questions is plenty.

Here's the structure, the question mix and the shortcuts that cut the prep down to about an hour.

The structure that works

• Six rounds of eight questions. Roughly ninety minutes including the marking.
• Round one: general knowledge, deliberately easy, to get every team on the board.
• Round two: a picture round, handed out at the start so teams work on it throughout.
• Round three: music.
• Round four: the specialist round - telly, sport or local knowledge.
• Round five: a wildcard - anagrams, connections, or 'name the year'.
• Round six: hard general knowledge, then a tie-break with a numerical answer.

The zero-prep music round

• Hitster is the shortcut here: the cards are songs, you scan one with a phone and it plays. Read out nothing, prepare nothing, and teams write down the year, the artist or both.
• Alternatively, a playlist of ten-second intros built the night before while you cook.
• Score two points for the artist, one for the song, one for the year.
• Pick tracks across four decades so no single team sweeps it.
• One deliberately terrible song halfway through. It gets the biggest reaction of the night.

Writing questions people enjoy

• Aim for two easy, four middling and two hard per round. All-hard is miserable.
• Ask about things people half-know. The best questions are the ones teams argue about.
• Keep answers to one word or one name - marking gets slow otherwise.
• Never write a question you can't source. Somebody will challenge it.
• Read every question twice, slowly. Once is never enough.

Running the night

• Teams of four to six. Bigger and half the table stops contributing.
• Teams swap answer sheets to mark each other's after every two rounds.
• Announce the running scores at half time only. Every round kills the pace.
• Phones in a bowl in the middle of the table.
• Prizes: a trophy, a box of chocolates, and a booby prize that everyone secretly wants.
• Have a spare tie-break question. You'll need it more often than you'd think.

Shop funny cards

How to write it so it lands

• Write the questions a week before, then cut the ten you're least sure about.
• Print two spare answer sheets per team. They always get soggy.
• The host doesn't play. Trying to do both ruins the evening for everybody.

Where to shop next

• New Year's Eve games for adults
• Dinner party games: keeping the table entertained
• 40th birthday party games
• Eurovision party ideas
• Classy hen party games
• Dinner party games for adults
• New Year's Eve games for all ages
• Hen party games at home
• Best word board games
• After-dinner board games for adults
• Decade quizzes, era by era
• Board games hub
• Free feel good tools
• Shop all cards
• Planning the party? Birthday party ideas
• How to make a balloon arch
• Photo booth prop ideas
• Pin badges
• All guides

Frequently asked questions

How do you run a pub quiz at home?

Six rounds of eight questions, teams of four to six, a picture round handed out at the start, marking swapped between teams every two rounds and a numerical tie-break in reserve.

How many rounds should a home quiz have?

Six. That's about ninety minutes with marking, which is the point at which people start looking at their phones.

How do you do a music round without spending hours on it?

Use a music card game like Hitster - scan a card with a phone and the track plays, so there's nothing to prepare. Teams write down the artist, song and year.

How hard should quiz questions be?

Two easy, four middling and two hard per round. The best questions are ones teams half-know and argue about, not ones nobody can answer.

Do you sell board games?

No. We make greeting cards, art prints, pin badges and party bits in the UK, so the games here are simply what we'd recommend to a friend. Some links go to other shops and may earn us a small commission, at no extra cost to you.