![[Definitive Guide] Guaranteed Crowd-Pleasers! Party Acts and Gags Everyone Will Enjoy](https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/IEkLSfs1F68/maxresdefault.webp)
In addition to enjoying food and drinks at New Year’s parties, year-end parties, and farewell parties, it’s also common to set aside time for entertainment.
If you’re asked to come up with the entertainment… it can be a real headache, right?
For those who absolutely want to get laughs and make it a fun time for everyone, I’d like to introduce some can’t-miss entertainment ideas!
Of course, “can’t-miss” doesn’t mean a guaranteed success, but try choosing based on the age range and makeup of the group.
We’ll also introduce classic games that get everyone excited regardless of age or gender.
Here’s hoping your gathering is fun and lively!
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Definitive Edition: Guaranteed Crowd-Pleasers! Party Games and Gags Everyone Will Love (1–10)
Ugly Face Championship
The “Bad Face Championship” is a simple yet exciting game where participants try to make the worst face they can.
The comedy duo Chocolate Planet did it on YouTube, and it became a hot topic.
Take photos of the participants’ bad faces and decide who made the worst one.
Best of all, it requires no decorations or preparation, so it’s perfect when you’re suddenly asked to provide entertainment.
With no prep needed and easy for anyone to join, the Bad Face Championship is guaranteed to liven up any gathering!
flip board comedy
There are lots of comedians—like ZAZY, Human Nakamura, and Itsumo Kokokara—who do routines by flipping through cards.
How about bringing that kind of “flip” comedy to your party? Write one setup word or picture per card, and a punchline on another, and build your bit step by step.
Don’t just make the cards—you’ll need solid connecting lines between them too! If you’re having trouble coming up with material, try studying routines by your favorite flip-comedy performers for inspiration.
Go on and have your party rolling with laughter!
Freestyle rap (improvised rap)
Freestyle rap is all about spinning lyrics on the spot.
If you can string the words together well and pull it off, it’s guaranteed to hype everyone up—why not give it a try? That said, it’s tough to jump into it out of nowhere at a party.
Even if you plan to improvise the lyrics on the day, it’s a good idea to practice beforehand.
You can train in various ways: look for rhyming words in everyday life and practice linking them together, sing songs with rap or tracks by your favorite rappers at karaoke, or freestyle about whatever you see on TV.
You can even make it a battle-style showdown and have a few people face off against each other!
Illusion Dance
An illusion dance that will have participants roaring with laughter! Dressed in costumes that are half black and half white, dancers line up side by side for a line dance.
The right foot of one person and the left foot of the person next to them appear to form a pair, creating a curious visual illusion.
By switching feet, doing a catwalk, or lifting their knees to the beat—simple moves that are nothing special on their own—become hilarious thanks to the trick of perception.
The great thing about this dance is that even mistakes add to the charm! How about livening up your year-end or New Year party with some teamwork?
Telepathy Game
Let’s try a telepathy game to see how strong the bonds are among friends or coworkers! Look at the prompt given, then each person answers with something they associate with it.
If everyone’s answers match, you succeed! Prompts can be simple, like “red fruit” or “black-and-white animals,” as well as ones tailored to your group, such as “the office mood-maker” or “the most popular person.” If there are many participants, you can split into teams and compete by seeing which team matches more often.
Give it a try and check how deep your connections really are!
Blind tasting
Blindfolded tasting: guessing food by texture alone! In fact, our sense of taste is greatly influenced by visual information.
So when you’re blindfolded and something is put in your mouth, it becomes hard to answer confidently—even with foods you normally eat.
If you also pinch your nose to block your sense of smell, the difficulty ramps up even more! Lining up different flavors of the same type of snack and identifying the differences is surprisingly tough, too.
It’s fun for all ages, so try adding it to your party entertainment!
recorder
The recorder we played in elementary and middle school music class—many people never touch it again after graduation, right? But if you can perform on the recorder with flair, it’s sure to liven up any party! Even if you think, “I could do it as a kid, so I can do it now,” it’s surprisingly hard to produce each note cleanly.
The high and low notes are especially tricky, so it’s better to practice than to rely on a one-shot performance.
If you pick a song that’s currently popular or one that’s a topic of conversation among the group, it’ll be even more of a hit!
dance
If you want to liven up the entertainment segment, dance is a great choice.
Practice a trending song and perform it, and the venue will heat up instantly.
Even if you have no dance experience, you can pave the way to success by practicing with lesson videos on YouTube.
If you’re not confident with choreography, there are beginner-friendly choreography videos you can use as references as well.
This is a recommended idea if you still have some time before the day of your performance.
Russian roulette
You can’t tell them apart by appearance at all, but one of them is super spicy! It’s a terrifying game of Russian roulette where only one of the prepared foods is secretly filled with wasabi or mustard, and everyone takes turns choosing and eating.
For the unlucky person who gets it, it’s less a party trick and more like a punishment game! Year-end and New Year parties are, after all, events for everyone to enjoy together.
You often see tons of ultra-spicy ingredients used on TV and in videos, but if you incorporate Russian roulette into your party, be very careful about the amount you use and whom you ask to take on the challenge!
100-yen rock-paper-scissors
In a rock-paper-scissors tournament where you aim to keep winning until you’re the last one standing, the promise of prizes at the end really heats things up.
Going straight for a big prize is great, but how about a setup where the prizes step up gradually? Each participant holds a small prize; those who lose place their prize in a prize pool and leave, and the last person standing takes all the prizes.
Recommended variations include: everyone starts with the same item and the quantity grows as the game goes on, or participants freely choose their prizes so the winner can scoop up a variety of different items at once.
