Quiz night games!

June 22, 2008 6:32 PM

Quiz night games- I'm organising a quiz night for 150+ people (argh!) and need to fill the time between rounds with games. Does anyone have suggestions for interesting and fun games for people to play at a quiz night?

Ideally, they'd be short (less than five minutes) and wouldn't require a huge amount of effort beforehand.

Traditionally, games like head and tails (throw two coins, people guess how they're going to land) or true and false are played, but they're pretty humdrum and I'm hoping to get something new.

Any ideas are appreciated. There will be around 8 rounds, so I'll need 7 games.

(also, if there are any questions you've had at a quiz night that were more than regular trivia type things, I'd be happy to hear those too)

Thanks!

posted by twirlypen to grab bag (16 comments total)

A "game" my brother and I have always played when we've got a couple minutes to burn is to take a deck of cards and just do a higher-or-lower guess with the next one (and if the card is the same, you get a pass), and whoever gets the longest streak is the winner. Not the most exciting game in the world, but fast-paced and definitely entertaining for a couple of minutes.
posted by phunniemee at 6:53 PM on June 22, 2008

You could print up a scavenger hunt list of questions, and let people work on filling their page all night. Then whomever has the most filled at the end of the night wins a prize.

The list would contain a list of things that people have done... for example:

Lived in Texas
Eaten dog food
Owned a snake
Parents divorced
Has 2 or more kids
Owns a motorcycle

The guests have to go around the room and actually talk to people, so it's like an ice breaker as well. Typically the rule is that you can use any person two times on your sheet, no more.

Another idea... a mini "Price is right" competition each round. Get a few supermarket items and pick 3 people from the crowd to come up - whomever gets closest to the price without going over, wins the item and maybe a fun prize of some sort (or a free drink?).
posted by kdern at 7:00 PM on June 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

The classic time filler is the 'beer questions' where you ask a more obscure trivia question and collect quarters for each wrong guess shouted by a player, and when someone guesses the right answer they get something like a free beer or other prize. You can also use specific items in top 10 lists, or the top 10 billboard songs from january 1995. Lots of potential and the crowd can really get into it.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:37 PM on June 22, 2008

As I recall, the probability that at least two people in a random collection of people will have the same birthday goes over 50% at the incredibly small number of 23.

You could have that as one of the questions, then during the break for that round you could test it by choosing six groups of seventeen from the audience and seeing how many hits you get. I once tried this with 22 very skeptical fourth graders, and was getting lots of giggling and rolling of eyes and 'yeah right's as the 22nd told her birthday and there were no matches, but that 22nd girl happened to have the same birthday that I do.

And I was very proud of her for demanding to see my driver's license.
posted by jamjam at 7:41 PM on June 22, 2008

six groups of 23, that is.
posted by jamjam at 7:48 PM on June 22, 2008

I have always been partial to liar's poker with one (5?) dollar bills.

Also, clothing bingo. First one to get all of what they are wearing wins. Call out such items as black lace bra, plaid boxers, blue jeans, green sneakers, etc.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:55 PM on June 22, 2008

A round of catch phrase? That's the most fun drunk game I've ever played. You could divide the bar in half for two teams, or get a couple sets for smaller groups of people.
posted by lilac girl at 7:57 PM on June 22, 2008

"1 vs 100"(the TV gameshow) sessions?
posted by tachikaze at 8:24 PM on June 22, 2008

This comes out of a dream I had, but it's cool. You go around to table with a mic and ask random people to sing the song they sing on their way to work and then you have other people jump up to sing if they know the lyrics.
posted by parmanparman at 8:34 PM on June 22, 2008

the very funny Sammy who runs the QuizMeisters trivia night I go to does a MacGuyver thing that's pretty awesome.

he announces at the round break that you all have x minutes to build a contraption from stuff you happen to be carrying and make up a little story about how you'd use it if you were MacGuyver. it does take a bit of time to go around and judge them all, but you can do that as you ask questions and announce the winner later.

you can also have teams make up theme songs from themselves.
posted by xz at 8:44 PM on June 22, 2008

Knobs & Knockers

Everyone stands up, and puts their hands on their Knobs (um...holds their hands in front of their groin region) or their knockers (hold hands in front of chest).

MC tosses a coin, if heads, everyone with hands on knobs is out & has to sit down, if Tails, everyone with hands on knockers is out and has to sit down. After each toss, whoever is standing decides where to place their hands before the next toss. Continue until there is only 1 person left standing. Give that person a prize.
This can also be played as Heads or Tails, using heads & bottoms in place of knobs & knockers, but knobs & knockers allows that extra little bit is raunchiness. OO-ER!
posted by goshling at 9:47 PM on June 22, 2008

Cool quiz questions I have been involved with (used to go to a quiz where each month the winning team set the next month's questions, it got a bit competitive...)

* Who can peel the longest piece of orange peel (winner was someone with REALLY sharp nails who created something over 2 metres long). Needs shitloads of oranges and a tapemeasure

* If you're drinking and there are bottles on the table, give each team a large bottle of water and tell them to make pan pipes out of empty bottles and then play happy birthday on them. Or whatever tune you choose (my team won this round by introducing a rhythm section)

* Given X pieces of spaghetti and some tape/plasticine, build the tallest freestanding structure (again needs tapemeasure)

* Sketch the Mona Lisa. This one is great. (which way is she facing? what's in the background?)

* Paper airplane contest

* Charity whiskey game - who can get the 50p/pound/whatever the largest denomination heavy coin is in your part of the world closest to the bottle of whisky at the end of the hall. Once you've paid for the whiskey, the rest of the cash goes to charity.

* Toilet paper identification. Get X pieces of toilet paper, they have to guess the type (andrex, school, recycled). Can do the same with cola, baked beans, etc. but with edibles you have to have lots.
posted by handee at 1:36 AM on June 23, 2008

MY regular quiz fills this time with a free drink question, and there's a 'photo round' that folks work on (a themed sheet of pictures, like team logos, and you have to name the city and team, or rock and rollers of the 50's, or global monuments and name the country). It's also a great time to run to the restroom, replenish supplies, sneak a quick smoke, whatever. No one ever seems to get bored in teh short time it takes between rounds.
posted by pupdog at 1:53 AM on June 23, 2008

Gah, I forgot to mention graffiti, teams are free to decorate their answer sheets, some folks are VERY dedicated during the round breaks. The best usually get scanned and distributed in the next week's email.
posted by pupdog at 1:55 AM on June 23, 2008

Did my first pub quiz night at the legion this past Friday and won! One of the time fillers between rounds was to pass out a sheet with various sports team logos that we had to identify. They had some really bizarre and cryptic logos there but you didn't necessarily have to know the city. Lots of fun.

Another idea would be to print out a list of latin phrases and have them translated.
posted by furtive at 7:20 AM on June 23, 2008

Thanks everyone. I'll have one round of team logos/photos/faces, one of contruction using spaghetti, a mona lisa sketch, an orange peeling round, and one of clothing bingo. Cheers!
posted by twirlypen at 5:28 PM on June 23, 2008