PLAYHOTSEAT
Host a session

For the host

Running the show

You are not a referee with a rulebook. You are the reason the room is loud. Read this once before your first session and you will not need it again.

Before anyone arrives

About 5 minutes

  1. Pick the activity

    What kind of night is it?

  2. Take the tagline

    It names the session for you.

  3. Add everyone

    Names in, nobody left out.

  4. Shuffle and pick captains

    Uneven is fine. Leave it.

  5. Choose your rounds

    1 to 3 for the night.

That is about five minutes from opening playHotseat to the first buzz. Do it before people are hungry.

Your screen is the only one with answers on it

Keep it facing you. Team phones only ever see what they are meant to: the prompt, the buzzer, the clock.

On the mic

Half of this is you.

Read out loud, and commit

A lyric read deadpan is funnier and harder than one read musically. Lean into it.

Judge fast

Close enough is correct. Arguing about phrasing kills more rounds than a wrong answer ever will.

Mix the rounds

After a whole-room buzzer round, send one player up alone. That is what stops the quiet ones staying quiet.

When something goes sideways

Every fix keeps the question you are on.

Someone turns up mid-round
Add them from Room controls, or in team play from that team’s own phone. Playing solo, they join with the code and their own name. They are in from the next question, and the one you are running is untouched.
A phone dies or takes a call
The owner leaves, or you remove the device from Room controls. That frees the slot, another phone joins with the same code, and play resumes on the very same question.
A nominee's phone is being difficult
Set or change the nominee yourself from the console. No need to restart the round.
You marked the wrong team
Fix it. Scores are a running ledger, so a correction nets out and nothing else moves.