The 1% Club · a Play Along round
The 1% Club is a knockout quiz for the whole room, built in the shape of the quiz show everyone already knows. Every guest starts with a thousand points and a phone. Fifteen questions, each one harder than the last, and a wrong answer puts you out and your points into the pot. Halfway through you can bank and walk away. Survive to the end and you choose, in front of everyone, whether to play it safe or go for the pot. It is thirty minutes of pure tension, and no trivia at all. Hire The 1% Club for an awards night, a conference dinner or a Christmas party and I host it live from the front, on your guests’ own phones.
My own game, built in the shape of the TV quiz: not the ITV programme, and no connection with it. Three hundred colleagues play at once instead of a hundred strangers.
How a round plays
The questions are logic and lateral thinking, not general knowledge. Nobody is out because they missed a pub quiz round; they are out because they did not spot the trick.
Which of these words can be typed using only the top row of a keyboard?
Forty-five per cent of people get this right. Thirty seconds. Four options, a number pad or a typed answer, depending on the question.
Get it right and you stay in. Get it wrong, or run out of time, and you are out, your thousand points go into the pot, and the pot on the big screen jumps. The room feels every elimination.
From question five you have a single pass to save yourself once. At question nine everyone still in decides: keep your thousand points and sit down, or carry on. The phone asks. The room watches who stands.
Whoever survives question fourteen is a finalist, and I bring them to the front. Each one chooses live, in front of the room: play it safe and share the ten-thousand-point safe pot, or go for it and face the one per cent question.
The hardest question of the night. Everyone who went for it answers, and the ones who get it right split the whole pot. The ones who played safe watch. The leaderboard settles and the room lets out its breath.
On the big screen
The 1% Club runs on two screens at once: the big screen the whole room watches, and the phone in every guest’s hand. Both are my own software, built for live events and run from one control screen at the front.
Three ways to play
Every game I run can be played three ways, and I pick the way that suits the room, the timings and the layout on the night: as a show at the front, table against table, or with every single guest playing on their own phone. Mix them across an evening and nobody spends the night watching.
As a show
Ten guests take the chairs at the front and play with answer cards while everyone else plays along on their phones for pride. The eliminations happen in full view, the keep-or-carry-on decision is made standing up, and the finalists’ choice is a proper piece of theatre.
Best for: awards nights and gala dinnersAt the tables
Every table argues its way to a single answer on one phone. A wrong answer knocks the whole table out, which is exactly the shared jeopardy a dinner needs, and the last table standing collects. Quieter tables often outlast the confident ones.
Best for: conference dinners and team away daysOn the app
The native version and the one the game was built for. Every guest plays individually from the first question, the pot grows on the big screen with each elimination, and the personal screens carry the tension: still in, out, kept, finalist. Tested with three hundred phones answering at once.
Best for: Christmas parties and whole-company nightsBuilt for the room
I customise every game for the audience in front of me: the questions, the answers, and the way I present them. The same format is a completely different show for a room of graduates in their twenties and a room of chief executives, and it should be. I write for the people who will actually be there, then I speak into the listening on the night: I read what the room is giving back and change gear to match it.
Send me the year’s stories, the in-jokes, the departments and the industry. The rounds are built from them, so the answers land in a way no off-the-shelf pack ever can.
The words on the screen are half of it. How I present them is the rest, and I pitch the pace, the teasing and the tone to the room that has turned up, not the one on the brief.
Eight hundred events across festivals, awards, conferences and dinners means I have hosted every kind of room. If the mood is not what anyone expected, I change the style on the spot, and often the questions too.
In the running order
As the main event after dinner, or as the closing game. It builds, so give it the slot where the room is settled and ready to concentrate.
Twenty-five to thirty-five minutes for the full fifteen questions, including the keep-or-carry-on decision and the finalists at the front.
Warm the room up with Common Ground first, and run Side Bets on who makes the final.
All sixteen games
Five rounds the whole room plays on their phones, nine big-screen games with teams at the board, and two that need no screen at all: a phone on a forehead, and a coin. The screen games are all my own software, run from one screen, so I can switch format the moment the room needs a lift. Tap any game to see exactly how it plays.
Vote with the room, score for matching it
How it plays →On your phone
Three stories, one true, the room decides
How it plays →On your phoneThis page
A knockout quiz down to the last few standing
You are hereOn your phone
Play money on what happens next on stage
How it plays →On your phone
Everyone answers, the lowest scores are cut
How it plays →Big screen
Two teams, one survey board, three strikes
How it plays →Big screen
Categories, buzzers and picture rounds
How it plays →Big screen
Higher or lower on a row of giant cards
How it plays →Big screen
Fill the gap, match the room’s funniest answers
How it plays →Big screen
A hidden phrase, one letter at a time
How it plays →Big screen
Describe it without saying it, against the clock
How it plays →Big screen
The whole room up, hunting and mixing
How it plays →Big screen
The conveyor belt of prizes to remember
How it plays →Big screen
Rave bingo with dance breaks and forfeits
How it plays →No screen needed
Charades with a phone on your forehead, table against table
How it plays →No screen needed
One coin, the whole room on its feet, one winner
How it plays →Almost all of these can be played as a show, at the tables or on the app, and the questions are written around your company before the night. Not sure which mix suits your event? Tell me the room and I will suggest a running order.
For the venue and IT
What clients say
Kevin recently hosted a company corporate event and proved to be the consummate professional throughout the evening. He has the unique ability to read a room and keep everyone happy.
Kevin hosted our staff conference event this year which was fantastic. He brought an energy and enthusiasm with him and played a really important part in getting people engaged in the day.
Thank you Kevin for hosting our Christmas party in December 2025. The team had an amazing time. We really liked the intertwining of awards and the game. Everyone had a brilliant time and Kevin was fantastic.
Good to know
Yes. This is the version I host live for companies: awards nights, conference dinners, Christmas parties and team away days, anywhere in the UK and across Europe. It runs on your guests’ own phones with the big screen at the front, I bring the software and run it, and every question set is written for the room in front of me.
No. It is my own original game, written and built for a live room, and it has no connection with the ITV programme or its producers. It follows the shape people love: questions tiered by how many of the public get them right, from ninety per cent down to one, with a pass, a chance to bank and a final decision, played for points rather than money.
Logic, lateral thinking and observation. No trivia, no dates, no capitals. Nobody is knocked out for not knowing something; they are knocked out for not spotting the trick, which is why it works for a mixed room.
You are out, and your thousand points move into the pot. From question five onwards you have one pass to use if you are not sure. At question nine you can also choose to keep your points and leave the game with them.
Everyone still in after question fourteen comes to the front and chooses: play it safe and share a fixed safe pot of ten thousand points, or go for it and answer the one per cent question. Everyone who goes for it and gets it right splits the pot. Someone who never used their pass keeps their original thousand whatever happens.
It was built for big rooms. Three hundred phones have been tested playing at once with no delay, and the show or table versions work for smaller groups.
Yes. The pot can be tied to a prize, a charity donation or simply bragging rights and the winning table’s name on the leaderboard. Scores are grouped by table across the night.
Fees are quoted individually for the date, the venue and the length of the show. Send the numbers and the running order and I will send a quote.
Enquiries
Tell me the date, the venue, rough numbers and the kind of crowd. I will confirm availability, suggest where The 1% Club fits in the night and send a quote.
