Birthday quiz: how to run one without losing the evening

How a game goes

1. Settle the format before the questions: ten questions, two teams, one round. A birthday is not a quiz night — the quiz is a moment in the evening, not the evening.
2. Pick a theme the person actually likes. It is the only setting that matters: a theme chosen for them makes a better quiz than a theme chosen to be hard.
3. Fit the table, not the number on the cake. A room of thirty-somethings and a room of four generations do not want the same timer or the same teams.
4. Print the sheet, or have everyone play on their phone with a code — depending on whether hands are full.
5. Keep the answer key to yourself until the end. It is the only suspense you have.

Common questions

How many questions for a birthday?

Ten. That is the answer for almost every table: five minutes, everyone stays with it, and there is appetite left for a second round. Twenty questions at a birthday is the point where people pick their phones up for something else.

Should the questions be about the year they were born?

It is the idea you find everywhere, and it works best if you write them yourself — we do not publish questions tagged by year. What works just as well: a theme the birthday person loves, where they have a natural advantage over the room.

What about a child’s birthday?

Drop the timer, make mixed teams with an adult on each, and pick something visual — Disney, animals. Otherwise reading speed decides the whole thing, which is not the game anyone wanted.

How do I handle four generations at one table?

Mixed teams rather than everyone for themselves, and mixed difficulty rather than rising. The age gap stops being a handicap the moment each team holds both ends of the table.