Remote teams just want to have fun!

Since Corona at least, it has affected many of us: Maintaining the team spirit from home, creating a sense of community and simply having fun together again is not that easy.

At 55BirchStreet, we therefore regularly exchange ideas and monitor the changes in the way we work very closely. By the way, there's a retrospective coming up today!

In addition, we have had the fun of working out a music bingo — with which we sit down from time to time with a glass 🍹🍸🍷🥂 in the evening and play and laugh together.

Since we have received a lot of positive feedback about this so far, we are giving you the opportunity to also play Music Bingo with friends, colleagues, family, etc.!

Here are the instructions, printable bingo slips and the appropriate Spotify playlist — have fun! We are looking forward to your feedback!

1. For whom? Everyone who is sitting in separate places but wants to play together.
2. What is that? Music bingo is a fun version of traditional bingo, where everyone can jam to excerpts of party songs as they compete against each other.
3. Number of players: 4 - 12
4. If you are more than 12, share the PDFs so that not everyone has 16 bingo cards, but less.
5. Time period: flexible, approx. 1-2 hours is the most fun for us!
6. What material do you need?
7. 1. Everyone needs 1 laptop/ tablet/ mobile phone with which he/she can participate in a video conference
   2. headphones with microphone
   3. Possibility to print out the bingo slips+ pen
   4. If necessary, it is also possible to digitally mark a split screen (video conference/bingo card) on a laptop and the PDF
   5. 1 Spotify Premium account (with advertising works too, but it's less fun) — this person is the best DJ to play (see roles)

Instructions:

• 1 person from the group must invite all participants to a video conference (e.g. MS Teams, zoom, webex). This person should have a Windows computer and be somewhat tech-savvy 🤓. (Note: There may be differences between browsers.)
• All participants transmit camera and audio so that you can hear each other's singing 😉

DJ:

Unfortunately, the DJ cannot play bingo himself because he/she sees the song titles. For this, he/she is responsible for organizing, moderating, checking the winner's slips and, of course, for the mood.

The DJ distributes the individual bingo cards to the players individually in advance (e.g. via email). The PDFs can hereto be downloaded

The DJ should decide in advance how many bingo cards can be used per person per round (min. 1, maximum 16 possible) or whether it is up to the players themselves how many they can “keep an eye on”.

The DJ plays the Spotify playlist on Shuffle:

• Only the DJ may have opened the Spotify playlist, the link is here: Music Bingo - Playlist 1 “Original”
• The DJ does a “screen transfer” in the video conference (important: transfer the video conference image and click on the sound transfer, screenshot with explanation for zoom here, for MS teams here.)
• After about 15-20 seconds, he/she should stop the song and start the next song. The DJ can adjust this period according to mood and skill so that the song is guessed (difficult especially with long intros without lyrics) and is also celebrated a bit.

Dancer:

The remaining participants are “dancers” and each receives an individual PDF (numbered 1-11) from the DJ, which they print out.

• On this, as with normal bingo, you have to tick the boxes whose songs are being played. But first you have to recognize the song!
• If a dancer has placed 4 crosses in a row — horizontally, vertically or diagonally — he/she must say BINGO! call. The game is stopped at this point, the DJ checks whether all the selected songs have been played and announces the winner of the round.

tips:

When everyone dresses up (e.g. Bad Taste, Disco Fever) or decorates (e.g. disco ball, colorful light), it can get even funnier.

When there is something to win, the ambition increases, which, depending on the participants, can lead to increased motivation but possibly also less of a party mood. Just decide how you want to do it, you know your people best!

Feel free to adjust the rules as you please (e.g. blackout, every field must be ticked, or max. 10 seconds of song excerpt) — just make sure that all participants have understood the rules beforehand.

Downloads for Music Bingo:

• Music Bingo - Playlist 1 “Original”
• Bingo card (PDF)
• Zoom and MS Teams Screen Sharing Guide
• If you have problems with screen sharing, have a look here
• • MS Team
  • Zoom

We wish you lots of fun!

Note: The corresponding music tracks may only be used or played in private settings. For business events, the applicable GEMA guidelines apply.

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