44 Pub Quiz Picture Round Ideas That Actually Work

The picture round always goes last. Hand the sheets out, leave the teams to it, and get on with marking everything else while they argue over number seven. It is the round they will happily chew over for half an hour, and that is not an accident — it is what buys you the time to get the scores straight.

The problem is coming up with a new one every week. So here are forty picture round ideas that actually work in a pub, grouped by type, with a note on how hard each one lands.

Close-ups and crops

Cheap to make, endlessly reusable, and they scale from easy to brutal depending on how far you zoom in.

1. Extreme close-ups of everyday objects. A zip, a strawberry, a tennis ball.
2. Cropped logos. One corner of a famous brand mark.
3. Cropped album covers. A single square from the artwork.
4. Zoomed-in film posters. Usually easier than people expect.
5. Upside down or mirrored images. Same picture, harder brain.
6. Black and white versions of things people only ever see in colour.

People and celebrities

The bread and butter. Fast to mark, and everyone can have a go.

7. Name the celebrity. The classic. Ten faces, ten points.
8. Celebrities as children. Baby and school photos of famous people.
9. Celebrity mashups. Two faces blended into one, name both.
10. Before they were famous. Early career shots.
11. Just the eyes. Or just the hair. Or just the mouth.
12. Actors out of costume from a role everyone knows them in.
13. Sports stars in a different sport's kit, or in plain clothes.
14. Local heroes. Faces from your own town or county. Goes down better than anything.

Anagram and wordplay rounds

Far and away the hardest type. Be generous with the time — thirty minutes rather than ten — and never run two weeks in a row.

15. Picture anagrams. Images whose names rearrange into something else.
16. Dingbats. Visual puzzles for a word or phrase. Teams either love these or hate them.
17. Rebus film titles. Pictures that sound out a movie name.
18. Two pictures, one word. Combine them to make a compound word.
19. Emoji films or songs. Works better than it sounds, and it plays well with younger teams.

Local and pub-specific

The best rounds you will ever run, because nobody can Google them and everybody has an opinion.

20. Local pub signs. Photograph ten within five miles.
21. Local landmarks, oddly angled. The town from a rooftop, a bridge from underneath.
22. Shop fronts on your high street, with the name blanked out.
23. Then and now. Old photographs of your town against the same spot today.
24. The pub itself. Ten close-ups of details inside the room they are sitting in. Nobody ever scores well and everybody enjoys it.
25. Regulars of the pub as children, with permission. Handle carefully, but it brings the house down.

Food, drink and products

26. Beer and lager logos with the wording removed.
27. Crisp packets stripped of branding, name the flavour.
28. Chocolate bars in cross-section. Genuinely difficult.
29. Cocktails. Name the drink from the glass and garnish.
30. Supermarket own-brand packaging, name the shop.
31. Old confectionery that has been discontinued. Pure nostalgia, and older teams clean up.

Television, film and music

32. Name the sitcom from the set. No people in shot.
33. Film locations as they look today.
34. Album covers with the artist removed.
35. Cartoon characters' houses or vehicles.
36. One prop per film. A sledge, a briefcase, a pair of ruby slippers.
37. Soap opera exteriors. The pubs, the streets, the squares.

Places, flags and maps

38. Countries by outline, no borders or labels.
39. Flags with a colour changed. Spot what is wrong.
40. Cities from the skyline.
41. Airport codes and their cities, illustrated.

Format twists

Not new subjects, but new ways to run the same pictures.

42. The connection round. Ten pictures with one link between them, bonus point for spotting it.
43. Odd one out. Nine belong, one doesn't.
44. Rank them. Put ten images in order — oldest to newest, smallest to largest.

How hard should a picture round be?

Aim for a spread inside the sheet, same as any other round. Two or three that everyone gets straight away, a middle block that separates the teams, and one or two that only the sharpest table lands.

On timing, I give between 10 and 30 minutes depending on the type. Straight "name the celebrity" rounds go quickly. Anagram and dingbat rounds need every minute you can spare, and rushing them is the fastest way to make a fun round feel mean.

Practical bits people forget

• Print more sheets than you need. Some teams want a spare to work on, and someone always spills a drink on one.
• Print in black and white if that is what the pub printer does — and check the images still read. Flags and album covers often don't.
• Number the pictures clearly. Big numbers. The lighting in most pubs is not on your side.
• Leave writing room. A grid of ten images with no space to answer is useless.
• Keep your answer copy face down. Same rule as the music round playlist.

Every PubQuizzes pack comes with a picture round built and ready to print, alongside three standard rounds, a music round with the playlist QR code and answer sheets. If you would rather build your own, take the list above and work through it a week at a time — that is most of a year covered.

And if you are starting a quiz night from scratch, this is the format I have settled on after years of Tuesday nights.

Mitch and Harry