Game Ideas for your next party

​So whether you’re hosting a BBQ Pool party, a 50th Birthday, graduation party or any other get together with friends and family and you’ve hired a DJ, you might want to include some games to get people engaged and having a good time at your event! A DJ’s job is more than just music, its to help read the crowd and facilitate a good time and keep it from going stale. Including some games throughout your event can be fun, and we here at Table Manners Productions can help facilitate. You might not have thought to include any or that wasn’t your idea of the typical role of the DJ, but as your Event Host we are more than happy to create, include, and run them. Think of us as your party game referee. I’ll go through some fun things we’ve done in the past that might be a great one for your next party!

Trivia:

​This one might be the obvious choice to include as we can get on the mic, engage the crowd with questions, keep some sort of tally, and announce the answers. And you’re right, this is probably the easiest (yet fun) way to get a feel for whether people want to participate in games or not. If they’re feeling some trivia, then they might be up for some other things as well. Here are some ideas for trivia that have worked in the past. For birthdays, it’s always fun to allude back to their birth year. You can ask trivia questions like the price of things, famous events, and top billboard hit songs on that year. Another idea is trivia about the person of interest at the party such as the birthday person, bride-to-be, graduate, etc. This can really show who knows you well at the party! And of course, trivia can be any theme of your choosing if you plan with us ahead of time that you’d like some pop culture, specific movie, something that ties into your party theme etc. We can do the research on our end and come prepared with the right questions to ask. As far as keeping tabs on who is winning, that can be done a multitude of ways. Everyone can get index cards and pens to play individually, dry erase boards and markers as a team relay, or just shout out the answer informally, its up to you (we provide the pens, index cards, dry-erase board and markers for score keeping as trivia is popular for us to do so we’ve got you covered there).

Song Games:

​Before playing any of these variations, you need to work with us to decide what decade, genre or style of music you want to use. This helps us in planning out the game, as we can even create whole bingo sheets ahead of time to print out and bring.

Song Shout: This one makes you think quick on your feet. You can play by getting everyone dancing on their feet to regular music, then the DJ throws the chorus of a random song in. The first to shout the random song title out gets a point. If they sing the next line of lyrics they can get a bonus point.

Name That Song: This could be played as a sit-down or dinner game. You could have everyone working in teams or individually on index cards during dinner.  Or first to raise their dry-erase board with the correct answer works too! We can keep the music going for dinner music and announce each snippet of a song, trivia style, by saying what number we’re on. You have to guess what that title of the song is and extra point for the artist. Score the index cards up at the end for the winner!

Song Bingo: Let us know and we can create the Bingo sheets ahead of time if we know the genre or decade you want played. This is a fun one anyone can play during a longer sit-down period during a party such as dinner. And it can be played the easy way where we say the song title and they find it on their bingo sheet, or the hard way and let them guess the song title (based off the snippet played) and still have to find it on their bingo sheet. The winner is the first to connect 5!
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Finish the Lyric: This is kind of a karaoke game but doesn’t involve anyone to be musically inclined to have a good time. This can be played knockout-style where everyone gets in a circle and the mic keeps getting passed around after you finish the lyric to the song playing. The DJ plays a song for a little bit, then cuts the music, at that point that person must finish the lyrics or they’re out! It keeps going until there is a last person standing.

Pause-the-Music Games:

So there are a ton of games that can happen with this format and the one you’re probably most familiar is Musical Chairs. And yes we still totally do musical chairs, it was a huge hit for a girl scout dance and they really got into it. Ended up doing 3 rounds in total because they kept asking to play it again and it got competitive. So basically with a Pause-the-Music format, you can play any game where we have music going, and they can only do the certain action when the music is paused.

Shark Attack/Zombies/Balloon Pop or whatever you want to call it is another fun one. Each person gets 2 balloons attached to rope tied to each ankle to represent their life counter of 4 lives (plan ahead for this one and have the balloon ropes already made and ready to go in trash bags). When the music is playing they run around the yard or gym or wherever the boundary is. When the music pauses, let the balloon popping commence. Everyone is then able to pop eachothers while trying to protect their own. Last one standing with balloons left wins! Or you can play this zombie/shark style where it only starts with one designated zombie/shark and losing all of your balloons turns you into a zombie/shark too and are the only ones allowed to pop balloons.

Hide-n-Seek can also be a good one. The seeker is turned facing outwards at the edge, wall or fence with their eyes covered. When the music is playing everyone else is running around and must be up and moving. They cannot be hiding yet. Once the music pauses people then have 5 seconds to hide as I count backwards 5-4-3-2-1-spin around. The seeker then spins around and if they see anyone still left out in the open or visible they’re out. (you can do an easy variation as well, where if most of their body is covered by some sort of object to hide them they are good, but if left out in the open with no obvious cover they’re out).

Hot Potato/Hula Hoop Pass is another fun variation of musical chairs. Keep a ball or balloon going in the air with everyone in a large circle. When the music stops and you’re the next to touch it oh no! You’ve blown up. Try this variation with a hula hoop where everyone stands in a large connected circle. Everyone must hold hands and not break the link. They must pass the hula-hoop to one another by stepping through and going over their arms and head with hands still linked to the next person. When the music stops the person with the hoop is out, this encourages you to get through the hoop quickly!
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Marshmallow Scultpure is a creative one that ties crafting and competition together. Everyone gets a bunch of toothpicks and a bag of marshmallows. When the music is playing the DJ announces an object to create a sculpture of. When the music pauses no more building. Each round of pausing, the best sculpture closest to that object wins a point. Go for as many rounds as you like. 

Dancing Games:

Conga Line Copy. The first person in line comes up with a fun walk, step or dance, that everyone has to repeat and mimic behind them in line. Once the dance move/step makes its way to the last person, the last one in line runs up to the front and starts a new move. This just keeps repeating until everyone has come up with silly moves for everyone to copy and have fun to.

Simon Says. We can keep everyone dancing with a game of simon says. We choose what dance move we want to keep doing and Simon Says it to the group. Be careful though, do a move that Simon doesn’t say and you could be out!
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Disco Tunnel. Everyone lines up in 2 lines and each take a turn going through the middle with their best moves! For more fun we keep changing the genre of the music and they have to come up with a move that closely fits the genre!
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Line Dances. We can get out there and teach line dances to people, after a decade of experience we know quite a few. A lot of older dances are getting lost among younger generations, so we can get out there and facilitate the teaching! Some of these include the Electric Slide, Cha Cha Slide, Cupid Shuffle, Wobble, and Cotton Eyed Joe. We’ve even got some newer popular ones up our sleeve as well like the Bikers Shuffle and Follow the Leader!

Is He my Husband?

​This one is a classic that we do quite a bit for 50th birthday parties, gets a good kick out of the crowd and tests how well they know eachother based on touch. Whether the party is for her or him, regardless this one takes a group of guys to volunteer (or be picked out by the DJ based on facial features) as the wife gets blindfolded. Just by touching facial features (anything above the neck) can she take a stab at guessing which one is her husband. Once decided upon her final answer, the blindfold comes off and we see who was chosen!

Jeopardy!

​We can use the projector and screen to cast a game of Jeopardy on the wall! This is an easy-enough to create game using powerpoint slides and hyperlinks. We can customize what your categories and questions are you’d like to play with or leave it up to use with a general theme. Alex what is “That’s Totally Awesome” for 1000.

Tournaments & Contests:

​We can help facilitate tournaments or contests of any type as the MC for the tournament. Got an idea in mind? We can keep tabs on the winners bracket and announce who is playing who next or where you need to go or be. This could be relay races in a lap pool or on foot (egg on spoon, 2 person ankle run etc), cards, yard games (cornhole, washers, beer pong, Kan-Jam, ladder ball etc..), you name it we can announce it. We can keep the energy going, the music playing, and make sure the announcements are flowing to keep everybody in the know of their tournament standing. This can also be said for contests and can announce the entries, and winners. We’ve done costume judging contests, Limbo, eating contests, etc… Utilize the DJ in many ways with announcements and games.

Prizes:

​Do you want you guests to win prizes for any of these games? We’ll leave that up to you to provide. Some people in the past have done small $5-$10 fast-food gift cards, cash, candy, and other prizes. Prizes do make games a little more competitive because they have something to win for, which can be a lot of fun!

Takeaway

​If you can’t already tell from reading this article, a DJ can have a lot bigger role in helping create that awesome party you had in mind. We are there to entertain guests with music, games, and more! As the event host its our job to make sure people are having a good time and we have a blast running any of these because it creates smiles and laughter when people are participating which we love to see. So if you are thinking of having a party with a DJ, what are some of these games you’d like to incorporate?  

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​​Article by DJ Scottie Manners (aka JIVE WISE)
Owner of Table Manners Productions