How to host a music party night

Plan the night

Start with the numbers. A music game works best with somewhere between four and eight people: enough for a good spread of taste, few enough that everyone gets a turn before the crisps run out. Top Tracks needs at least 3 players and a standard room holds up to 10 (20 if the host has a lifetime plan). If you are expecting more than that, plan to play in teams instead — more on that below.

Then think about time. Each player plays one track per round, so the length of a game grows with the number of people. As a rough guide, allow about three minutes per player per round: four friends playing two rounds is around 20–25 minutes, and the lobby shows an estimate before you start. A group will often play two or three games across an evening, with food and arguments in between, so a three-hour slot is plenty.

A theme is optional, but a decades-only first game gives quieter guests an easy way in.

Inviting people

Tell people in the invite that it is a music night and that they should come with a charged phone. That one line saves a lot of hunting for chargers later. Nobody needs to install anything or create an account to play Top Tracks: on the night they scan a QR code, tap the invite link you send them, or type a five-character room code, then choose a nickname.

It is worth saying the game is about taste, not trivia, so nobody turns up worried about getting questions wrong.

Setting up phones, a TV and a speaker

Do the set-up before the doorbell goes. There are three pieces: the game, a big screen (optional but fun) and the sound.

The game

On your phone, open Top Tracks and pick the kind of night — Party with a TV is the usual choice — or use Quick start for a Warm-up or Party game, which opens a room in one tap. You play too, as well as hosting.

The TV

On a laptop, a smart TV’s web browser or a tablet, tap Show the big screen on the Top Tracks home page. It shows a pairing code; enter it in your lobby under Connect the TV. The TV becomes the shared table, from the join QR code to the Big Reveal, and never shows a score early. Browsers won’t play sound until someone taps them, so tap Tap to enable sound on the TV once. If you only have a phone or tablet spare, you can mirror it to the TV with AirPlay, Chromecast or an HDMI adapter. The party game with a TVpage shows the whole set-up.

The sound

On their turn, each player plays their track from their own music app — any app will do — using the Open in link to jump straight to it. The best set-up is the game on the TV and the music on a separate speaker: a soundbar, a Bluetooth speaker or a room speaker such as a Sonos or Echo, chosen from the speaker icon in the music app. Avoid casting the music to the same TV that shows the game (Chromecast, the smart TV’s own Spotify app or AirPlay to that Apple TV), because the music takes over the screen.

If juggling speakers sounds like too much, switch on Preview mode. The TV — or one phone, if there is no TV — plays a 30-second preview of each track from Apple Music, so nobody needs a music app at all. No TV? The game works with just phones too: see the phones-only page.

Running the evening

Explain the game in under a minute. In Top Tracks, a card is dealt — a decade, a genre or something like Road trip. Everyone secretly picks a track that fits, then takes a turn playing it while everyone else scores it 3, 2 or 1 in secret. Nobody sees a score until the Big Reveal. That is genuinely all a new player needs; the rest becomes obvious after one round. Our cards and scoring guide covers the details if you want them.

For a first game with a new group, start at the Warm-up level (decades only) and move up a level next game. Use the arrows in the lobby to put players in seating order so turns go round the room. Big group? Choose Teams: teammates suggest tracks privately and a captain locks one in for the team, and theteam game page explains how it works.

Keeping it moving

The thing that slows music nights down is dithering. A few settings help:

• Add the pressure — an optional pick timer: 2 minutes, 1 minute or 30 seconds. Anyone without a track when time is up sits the round out.
• Move on when everyone’s voted — on to start with: once every score is in, the next track starts after a five-second countdown. If the room is loving a song, enough players can tap Keep listening for an extra 30 seconds (when tracks are played from your own apps).
• Done — players don’t have to play a whole track. Encourage people to tap Done once the room has heard enough.

As host you also have Host controls: Next when someone has wandered off mid-turn, Reveal now when someone forgets to start their track, and Pause game for pizza. If a phone dies, the player can rejoin from the same browser and keep their seat and points. Latecomers join from the next round.

The after-party playlist

After the Big Reveal, the winner gets the Winner’s Pick: one track of their choice, played in full, while everyone else listens without complaint. Then every track from the night lands on one playlist page that you can open, scan off the TV or share. The end screen also lets you copy the track list or download it as a text or CSV file; the game suggests pasting it into a playlist converter such as Soundiiz or TuneMyMusic if you want it as a playlist in your own music app. Anyone can tap the star on a track to save it for later — handy for the song they pretended they already knew.

Fancy another game? The host taps Play again and hosts the next one within 20 minutes, and the TV and everyone still on the end screen come straight into the new lobby. Anyone ready to go home taps Leave.

For every setting and rule, see the in-game How to play guide. Hosting for children as well as adults? Read ourfamily game night guide.