College events
Quiz rounds for college fests and club events
Fest quiz rounds, society inductions, freshers' nights, hackathon breaks — Buzrr gets a hall full of people answering on their own phones with one QR code on the screen.
What is Buzrr?
Buzrr is an open-source quiz platform that runs in the browser. A host builds a multiple-choice quiz — by hand or with AI — and opens a live room; players join from their own phones or laptops with a 6-character code, a link or a QR code, without creating an account. Signed-in users can also play ranked 1v1 quiz battles. Buzrr is licensed under AGPL-3.0, so anyone can read the code or run their own instance.
What goes wrong at event quizzes
Event quizzes are run by volunteers, on venue Wi-Fi, in front of a crowd that arrived five minutes ago. Paper answer sheets need marking; hands-up rounds favour the front row; and anything that asks the audience to install an app loses half the room.
Organisers also want a clear winner at the end — a ranked leaderboard they can put on the screen and read out.
How Buzrr handles an event round
One QR code for the whole hall
Put the room's QR code on the projector. Everyone joins in the browser with a nickname — no sign-up, no app store.
Ties broken by speed
Correct answers score more the faster they come in, so a close final usually still produces a clear ranking.
Rooms sized for a crowd
A free room holds 50 players; Buzrr Pro raises that to 250. A club running its own instance gets 250 by default and can raise a host's cap.
A codebase your club can hack on
Buzrr is open source (AGPL-3.0) and written in TypeScript with Next.js and NestJS. Coding clubs can self-host it for their fest or contribute features back.
Running a fest prelims round
- 1
Build the prelims quiz in advance. Add image questions for logo or picture rounds.
- 2
On the day, open the room and project the QR code while teams settle in.
- 3
Keep an eye on the lobby and ban anyone who joins under an offensive name.
- 4
Run the round. The running leaderboard after each question keeps the hall engaged.
- 5
Read the top of the final leaderboard to pick your finalists; the full results are saved in your history.
Features that matter here
Live hosted quiz rooms
The host runs the room from one screen and moves it along question by question. Players join with a 6-character room code, a join link or a QR code.
Speed-based scoring
A correct answer earns up to 1,000 points, sliding to 100 at the time limit; wrong answers score 0. Answer time is measured on the server, not on the player's device.
Image questions
Attach an image to a question — a diagram, a map, a logo, a photo round.
Room controls
Remove a player from the lobby or the live leaderboard, or ban them so they can't rejoin that room.
Open source (AGPL-3.0)
The full source — web app, game server and AI service — is public on GitHub.
Self-hostable
Run your own instance on your own infrastructure. Self-hosted instances run with billing off and Pro limits.
Tips from running it
- Venue Wi-Fi is often the weak link. Ask the audience to use mobile data if the network is crowded; players who drop can rejoin without losing their score.
- For team rounds, have each team join as one player with the team name as the nickname.
- Between rounds, point people to ranked 1v1 battles to keep them playing.
Know the limits
- Rooms are capped at 50 players on Free and 250 on Pro. For a larger audience, split into several rooms.
- Hosts sign in with Google, so the organiser running the room needs a Google account.
- There is no built-in buzzer round or open-answer question type.
What it looks like
Coming from another tool?
- Kahoot! alternativeLive rooms with a code, speed scoring and leaderboards — open source, self-hostable, plus ranked 1v1 battles.
- Slido alternativeFor Slido quiz, trivia and game sessions — not its Q&A or polls.
- QuizUp alternativeRanked 1v1 battles of seven timed questions, in the browser — QuizUp shut down in 2021.
Related use cases
- Trivia nights without the answer sheetsWhether it's a regular pub quiz or a trivia night over video call, Buzrr does the marking and the leaderboard so the quizmaster can concentrate on the banter.
- Quiz your audience, liveClose a talk with a five-question quiz, run a trivia segment on a livestream, or warm up a meetup crowd. The audience joins from their phones; the leaderboard does the rest.
- Quick quizzes for team buildingA Friday quiz, an all-hands icebreaker, an offsite warm-up. Drop the join link in chat and the whole team is playing inside a minute, remote or in the room.
- Buzrr as an open-source quiz platformWhat's in the AGPL-3.0 codebase, how it's built, and how to contribute.
- Run a self-hosted quiz serverWhat you need to run your own Buzrr instance, and what changes when you do.
Try it with your group
Buzrr is free to start. Build a quiz, open a room and have people join from their phones.