The landlord's blog Quiz nights
Why the back of the room can't hear your quiz (and how to fix it without a new PA)
The real reasons questions get lost at the back tables, and cheap fixes you can try this week, from mic habits and speaker placement to putting the questions on your TVs.
Every quiz host knows the shout. "What was that?" from the table at the back, just as you move on to the next question.
It isn't that the back of the room isn't listening. They can't hear. And the usual fix, turning it up, often makes things worse for everyone else.
Why it happens
Distance, and everything in between
Sound gets weaker the further it travels. By the time your voice reaches the back tables, it's competing with everything in between. The bar, the fridges, the glass washer, and the table near the speaker still arguing about round two.
Speakers set up for music, not speech
Plenty of pubs have one or two speakers mounted high in a corner, set up for background music. That's fine for a playlist. For speech it's poor. The people underneath get blasted, and the people across the room get a muddy echo.
Hard surfaces
Wooden floors, tiled bars and big windows all bounce sound around. Speech is made of quick, sharp sounds. When they bounce, words blur into each other. Music hides this. A quiz question doesn't.
More people struggle than you'd think
RNID, the national hearing loss charity, says there are over 18 million people in the UK who are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus. That's roughly a third of the population. In a full quiz room, plenty of people will be straining to catch every word, and background noise makes it far harder for them.
Fixes that cost little or nothing
Turn the music off during questions
It sounds obvious, but it's often missed. Background music under the host's voice is the single biggest thing that drowns out speech. Mute it while you read, and bring it back for the answer-writing gaps if you like.
Let the room see your face
People lip-read more than they realise. Stand where most tables can see you, with light on your face rather than behind you. Don't read with your head down into a sheet. Look up for the question.
Hold the mic properly
Keep it close, about a fist away from your mouth, and keep it at the same distance the whole time. Most muddy quiz sound comes from a mic that drifts away when the host looks down at the next question. If it squeals, you're probably pointing it at a speaker. Turn so the speakers are in front of you, not behind.
Number every question, and say it twice
"Question four. Which river runs through Durham? Question four again. Which river runs through Durham?" It feels slow at the front. At the back it's the difference between playing and giving up.
Spread the sound instead of cranking it
Several quieter speakers spread around the room beat one loud one in the corner. If you've got a spare powered speaker, put it towards the back, aimed at the far tables, and bring the main ones down a notch. The front stops wincing and the back starts hearing.
Soften the room a little
You don't need acoustic panels. Curtains, cushions and a rug under the quiz area all soak up some of the bounce. It's not a cure, but it helps.
Ask the back tables
At the break, walk to the back and ask if they can hear. It takes a minute and they'll be honest. Then fix the thing they tell you.
The fix that removes the problem: put the questions on the screens
If people can read the question, they don't need to hear it.
Most pubs already have TVs. Use them. Put each question up as you read it. The simplest way is a slideshow on a laptop, plugged into one TV with an HDMI lead. That gets you one screen, and one is a big step up from none.
If you've got several TVs in different rooms, you need every screen showing the same thing at the same time. Splitting one cable to lots of TVs gets messy fast. A screen that runs from a web page is easier, because each TV just opens the same page.
Screens help more than the back tables. They help people with hearing loss, people whose first language isn't English, and the person who was at the bar when you read question six. Everyone plays the same quiz.
Print answer sheets with numbered lines too. If someone misses a question, they can see which number they skipped and ask at the break, instead of losing track of the whole round.
Sources
We checked every source on 23 October 2026. Rules change, so check the latest version before you act. Nothing here is legal advice.