The naughty side of The Barmen
The list · updated for 2026
Eighteen games, sorted from tame to bold, with how to play them and — more usefully — when to run each one. We host these most weekends, so this list is what survives contact with a real room.
Before the list
Nobody is forced, everyone is allowed. The fastest way to kill a hens party is a game that one person clearly does not want to play, run by someone who has not noticed. Every game below is opt-in. Anyone can sit a round out and step back in two rounds later, and a good host makes that feel normal rather than awkward.
The second rule: order matters more than the games do. Start tame while people are still arriving and still sober, warm up through the middle, and save anything bold for after the room has settled — usually somewhere between the second and third drink. Run it the other way around and even a great game falls flat.
Run these in the first hour, while people are arriving and the drinks are still being made. They exist to get strangers talking, not to get anyone drunk.
You need
Ten questions, and the groom's answers recorded in advance.
Ask the groom ten questions about the relationship a week early — where they met, who says sorry first, what she orders at a bar — and film him answering. On the day, ask the bride the same questions. Every mismatch is a sip.
Why it works: it is the only game where the groom is in the room without being in the room, and it makes everyone feel involved in the couple rather than just the party.
You need
Twenty questions from the maid of honour. Paper and pens.
How well does the group actually know her? First job, worst haircut, the holiday she still talks about. Everyone writes answers; the bride marks them. Highest score wins, lowest score gets a dare.
Why it works: it separates the friends who have known her fifteen years from the ones who met her at work last year, and both groups find that funny.
You need
Nothing. A drink each.
Everyone holds up five fingers. Go around the circle: "never have I ever…". If you have, you drop a finger and drink. First to zero loses, or wins, depending on the group.
Why it works: it self-regulates. The room decides how rude it gets, one statement at a time, and you can read exactly where the line is by round three.
You need
Nothing.
Each guest gives three statements about themselves; the group votes on which one is invented. Anyone who guesses wrong drinks.
Why it works: it is the best icebreaker for a group where half the guests have never met, which is most hens parties.
You need
A baby photo from every guest, collected in the group chat, printed or on a screen.
Number the photos, hand out paper, everyone matches face to name. Simple, and reliably the loudest twenty minutes of the afternoon.
Why it works: it requires nothing on the day and it is the one game the bride's mother and the bride's oldest friend both want to win.
You need
A cheap plastic ring for every guest.
Everyone wears a ring. Certain words are banned for the whole event — usually "wedding", "bride" and "groom". Catch someone saying one and you take their ring. Most rings at the end of the night wins.
Why it works: it runs quietly in the background for six hours and needs no host at all. Start it the moment the first guest walks in.
You need
A scored list of items. Everyone's bag.
Read out items — a receipt over $100, a hair tie, something from more than three countries away, a photo of a pet. Points for whoever produces one first. It escalates on its own.
Why it works: it is fast, it needs no preparation beyond a list, and it makes everyone laugh at their own bag.
You need
Cards and pens. A box or a jar.
Every guest writes one piece of marriage advice, anonymously. Read them out and the bride guesses who wrote each. Keep the cards — most brides do.
Why it works: it is the one game that produces something she still has in five years, and it lands well as the closer for a daytime hens.
Second drink onwards. Louder, more competitive, and where most hens parties spend the bulk of the night.
You need
One bandaid per guest, and someone brave.
A hens classic. Everyone gets a bandaid and has to stick it somewhere on themselves — the catch being that at some point in the night, every bandaid comes off. Where it went is entirely up to the guest, which is why the game is funnier the earlier you hand them out.
Why it works: it is the fastest way we know to get a room laughing, and it costs about four dollars.
You need
A long table, cups, ping pong balls, and something worth drinking.
The house-party staple, upgraded. Same rules as beer pong, except the cups hold prosecco or a short cocktail instead of warm lager. Teams of two, elbows behind the table edge, and a re-rack at six cups.
Why it works: it is the game that pulls in the guests who said they did not want to play games. Something about a table and a ball is irresistible. We bring the cups.
You need
A bartender, two teams, and the same ingredients each.
Split the group in two. Each team gets sixty seconds of instruction and then has to build the same cocktail. The bride judges blind, on taste and on presentation, and the losing team owes the winners a round.
Why it works: it is the game we get asked for most, because it is the only one where everyone ends up with a genuinely good drink. It is also the natural bridge into a full hens cocktail class.
You need
Six identical glasses, five good, one questionable.
Line up matching shots. Five are something pleasant; one is not. Nobody knows which. Guests pick in turn and the room watches the face.
Why it works: the anticipation does all the work. Keep the bad one unpleasant rather than genuinely awful — pickle brine, not something that ends the night.
You need
A jar, folded slips, and dares written by people who know her.
Every guest writes two truths and two dares before the day. The bride draws all night; anyone can be nominated to take one on her behalf. Cap the dares at things that can be done in the room.
Why it works: the group writes its own difficulty level, which means it never overshoots. Have the maid of honour vet the jar first anyway.
You need
Printed cards, one per guest.
Fill each square with something likely to happen — the bride cries, someone orders an espresso martini, a stranger asks who is getting married, a bridesmaid loses a shoe. First full line shouts.
Why it works: it keeps the game going while you are moving between venues, which is when most hens nights lose momentum.
You need
A host, and two teams.
Bridesmaids versus everyone else, over short rounds: fastest to build a drink, best thirty-second speech about the bride, a relay across the room. Keep each round under three minutes.
Why it works: teams give the quiet guests cover. People who will not play alone will absolutely play for a team.
These are the ones people ask about and the ones that need the most care. Strictly opt-in, strictly 18+, and only ever as far as the room actually wants to go.
You need
A group that has asked for it. Nothing else.
The bolder end of the list, and a very common request. We will run it if the group wants it and we will quietly not mention it if they do not. Nobody is ever put on the spot, and any guest can opt out without having to explain themselves.
Why it works: because it is chosen rather than sprung. The version that goes wrong is always the one nobody agreed to.
You need
To ask us in advance.
Available on request as part of the night rather than as a surprise. Discussed when you book, priced in the quote, and pitched exactly at the level the group set.
Why it works: because it is planned. Surprises are for the bride's cake, not for her guests.
You need
Ten minutes with the group chat.
Tell us about her — the running joke, the ex nobody mentions, the thing she always says at 1am — and we will build a round around it. Custom games consistently outperform anything off a list, because the punchline is already installed.
Why it works: it is the only game in this list the group could not have found on the internet, and it is usually the one they talk about afterwards.
Running them well
Do not run more than six games. A hens party with eighteen games is a school sports carnival. Pick six, run them properly, and leave room for the night to happen on its own.
Feed people before the third game. Almost every hens night that goes sideways goes sideways because the food arrived after the drinks did.
Give the host job to someone who is not drinking much. Games need someone tracking scores and reading the room. If that is the maid of honour, she is working, not attending — which is a large part of why people hire us.
Have an exit. Every game should have an obvious moment where it ends. Games that fizzle out take the energy with them.
Asked constantly
Five or six across a whole event. One or two warm-ups while people arrive, two or three through the middle of the night, and one closer. More than six and it stops feeling like a party and starts feeling like a schedule.
Mr & Mrs, bride trivia, guess the baby photo, the ring game and advice for the bride all work with any group, including one that spans three generations. Every game in the tame section of this page is safe for a hens party where the bride's mother and future mother-in-law are both attending.
Under eight guests, skip anything team-based and anything that needs a big table. Mr & Mrs, two truths and a lie, the truth or dare jar and a cocktail showdown all run well with five or six people. Bridal bingo and pong both need numbers to be fun.
Someone who is not drinking heavily and is not the bride. Traditionally that is the maid of honour, which means she spends her friend's hens party working. Booking a host solves that, which is honestly the most common reason people call us rather than the cocktails.
Completely normal, and it is on the host to make sitting out feel like an option rather than a statement. We pitch games to the group's comfort level, from light-hearted to a little more wild, and anyone can step out of a round and back into the next one.
For the games we host, yes — cups, balls, cards, shot glasses and the drinks that go in them. If you are running your own, the "you need" line on each game above is the whole shopping list.
Or don't run them yourself
The Hens Games add-on is 15+ games hosted by an RSA-trained bartender who is watching the room rather than playing in it. Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. Monday to Thursday hens nights get 20% off.
