How to make your own pub quiz: a step-by-step guide

Making a pub quiz is not a full-time job: with a clear format, one evening of writing questions, and a few simple rules you're all set. This guide runs from the first idea to the night itself, including the pitfalls every first-time quizmaster runs into.

By Thomas van der Pas · Published July 15, 2026 · All articles

Step 1: decide who it's for and where

Everything starts with the group. A quiz for your friends can be full of inside jokes and mean questions; a birthday with three generations or drinks with colleagues needs broader material. Also think about where you'll play: on the couch, at the pub, or at the office. That decides how much noise, space, and tech you have to work with.

Step 2: pick a format

Four to six rounds of roughly ten questions each is the gold standard.
Count on sixty to ninety minutes including breaks and standings.
Teams or individual? Teams of three to five are more social and keep the pace up; individual play works better for small groups.
Give each round a theme so the night feels like a whole instead of a loose bag of questions.

Step 3: write your questions

The rule of thumb: a few easy questions per round (everyone scores, everyone stays engaged), a solid middle, and one or two real brain-breakers that decide the winner. Beyond that:

Verify every answer against a reliable source; nothing kills a quiz night faster than a wrong answer from the quizmaster.
Avoid ambiguous questions where several answers are defensible, or state explicitly which answer counts.
Keep a fun fact with every answer; reading it out is often the best moment of the question.
Don't feel like inventing everything yourself? Start with our fifty pub quiz questions with answers and top up with questions about your own group.

Step 4: vary your round types

Ten rounds of multiple choice gets dull, however good your questions are. Alternate knowledge questions with formats that don't require an encyclopedia: a music round (recognize the clip), an estimation round (closest wins, everyone can join), pointing out a spot on a map, or a ranking question. Those are exactly the rounds that keep the non-trivia-buffs at the table.

Step 5: sort out the presentation

Three flavours, each with an honest trade-off:

Pen and paper. Free and nostalgic, but you mark everything yourself and a music or map round is hard to pull off.
Slides (PowerPoint or Keynote). Looks polished on the TV, but keeping score stays manual and collecting answers takes time.
A quiz tool. Questions on the big screen, everyone answers on their own phone, and the score keeps itself. Saves the quizmaster the most work; do expect a subscription for the richer round types.

Step 6: rules and scoring

Keep scoring simple: one point per correct answer, at most a double-points round as the finale.
Agree on a tie-break rule up front, for example one estimation question as a shoot-out.
Playing on paper? Make the phone ban explicit (and invent a fun penalty for it).
Plan something for the winner and the loser; a small prize or a penalty for last place gives the final standings real stakes.

Step 7: host the night

Read the question out loud, even when it's on the screen; you set the pace.
Reveal the answer with your fun fact after every question, not at the end of the round.
Show the standings a few times per night; tension in the ranking is half the fun.
Plan a break halfway, exactly when the drinks run dry.

The pitfalls

Too hard. Quizmasters almost always overestimate the group; cut your hardest questions.
Too long. Stopping at the high point beats a drawn-out finale.
Ambiguous questions. One argument about a debatable answer costs more atmosphere than ten good questions build.
Marking chaos. If you play on paper, mark during the break or have teams swap sheets; otherwise the night stalls.

Make your own, without the busywork

Everything above works with pen and paper. If you'd rather make it easy on yourself: with Kwishetwel you host from the TV or a laptop, your guests play along on their own phones without an app, and the score keeps itself, including music, map, and ranking rounds and the penalty wheel for the loser. Ready-made rounds are waiting (free to start), and the Ultimate plan lets you build your own rounds and complete quizzes, for example packed with questions about your own group.

Create a quiz night for free →See the plans

Further reading: 50 pub quiz questions with answers and pub quiz questions for a company outing.

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