How to throw the best Halloween party (with music bingo)

Every Halloween party hits the same wall around 10 p.m. Forty people in great costumes stand by the crisps, waiting for something to happen.

More fog won’t fix it. Three things will: a soundtrack that starts spooky and ends on the dance floor, a host who isn’t scared of looking ridiculous, and a game that gets the whole room shouting. That game is Halloween music bingo.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• How to mix Halloween songs with the hits your crowd dances to
• The 25 best Halloween songs everyone recognizes
• How to turn your playlist into printable bingo cards
• What the host wears, what to give away and how to get winners performing

Already have a playlist? Make your Halloween bingo cards and print them tonight. Up to 15 cards are free, Halloween designs included. No playlist yet? Use our Halloween party hits.

The five keys to a great Halloween party

The short version, before we get into each one:

1. Music: open 100% Halloween, then switch between Halloween songs and the hits your crowd dances to.
2. The host’s costume: the best one in the room, or the funniest. Nothing in between.
3. Prizes: themed, a little absurd, and every winner gets a drink.
4. Performing: winners come up, say their name and act like their costume.
5. Talking to people: the host works the room all night. That’s the real job.

1. The music: start spooky, then mix in the hits

Open with pure Halloween

The first 20 to 30 minutes set the theme. People walk in, see the costumes, hear “Somebody’s Watching Me” and think: right, this is a Halloween party. Play six to eight unmistakable Halloween songs back to back before anything else.

Then switch between Halloween and hits

After the opening, alternate: one Halloween song, one hit. The Halloween songs keep the theme alive. The hits keep people dancing, because nobody wants to dance to “Monster Mash” for three hours.

If the room is dancing more than playing, go one Halloween song for every two hits. If it’s a family party, lean more Halloween.

Pick the hits by the vibe you want:

Look for hits with a dark or night-time angle. “My Family” is the theme song from the animated Addams Family film, so it’s a perfect bridge between the two worlds. “Disturbia” and “Toxic” are both on Spotify’s official Halloween Party playlist.

Example: the first 12 songs of a Halloween + reggaeton night

1. “This Is Halloween” — The Citizens of Halloween
2. “Somebody’s Watching Me” — Rockwell
3. “Monster Mash” — Bobby “Boris” Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers
4. “Ghostbusters” — Ray Parker Jr.
5. “Spooky, Scary Skeletons” — Andrew Gold
6. “Time Warp” — The Rocky Horror Picture Show cast
7. “Vampiros” — Rosalía & Rauw Alejandro
8. “Disturbia” — Rihanna
9. “Gasolina” — Daddy Yankee
10. “Bloody Mary” — Lady Gaga
11. “La Diabla” — Xavi
12. “Thriller” — Michael Jackson

Playing it on Spotify? Turn shuffle off, or your carefully built opening turns into “Gasolina” at minute one.

Plan the dance moments

Some Halloween songs come with the moves built in. Don’t bury them in the middle of a bingo round. Announce them:

• “Time Warp”: the lyrics literally tell you the steps. Everybody up.
• “Thriller”: the zombie dance. Call every zombie in the room to the front.
• “Ghostbusters”: the host shouts “Who you gonna call?” and the room answers.
• “Monster Mash,” “Witch Doctor,” “Dead Man’s Party”: easy, silly, impossible to do badly.

“If you came as a zombie, this one’s yours” gets more people moving than any light show.

2. The 25 best Halloween songs for a party

These are the songs a party crowd recognizes in the first few seconds. That’s exactly what you want, both for the dance floor and for music bingo. Most of them come from Spotify’s official Halloween Party playlist, the Billboard Hot 100 around Halloween, or the UK’s most-streamed Halloween songs.

Need more ideas for the hits side of the playlist? The 50 best songs for music bingo are all crowd-tested.

Throwing a bilingual party? Add these

If part of your crowd speaks Spanish, German or Dutch, a few local spooky songs make them feel seen:

• Spanish: “Vampiros” (Rosalía & Rauw Alejandro), “La Diabla” (Xavi), “Calaveras y diablitos” (Los Fabulosos Cadillacs), “Lobo-hombre en París” (La Unión), “No es serio este cementerio” (Mecano), “La Llorona” (Chavela Vargas)
• German: “Augen auf!” (Oomph!), “Der Ur-Ur-Enkel von Frankenstein” (Frank Zander)
• Dutch: “Twilight Zone” (Golden Earring), “Ice Queen” (Within Temptation)

Mix them in through the night instead of grouping them in one block.

Kids and family-safe picks

Monster Mash, Ghostbusters, This Is Halloween, Spooky, Scary Skeletons, Addams Groove, Witch Doctor, “Calling All the Monsters” (China Anne McClain), “Your Idol” (Saja Boys, from KPop Demon Hunters), “Remember Me” (from Coco) and “Rotten to the Core” (from Descendants). “Thriller” works for older kids, though the video can scare the little ones.

3. Turn the playlist into Halloween music bingo

Music bingo is bingo with songs instead of numbers, and one of the best Halloween party games for adults. Every guest gets a card with song titles, the host plays short clips, people mark what they hear, and the first one to complete the pattern shouts “Bingo!” It turns a room of people standing around into a room of people paying attention.

1. Build a public Spotify playlist in the order above. For a party with 3x3 cards, 30 to 40 songs is plenty. Bingofy needs at least 20 unique songs for 3x3, 25 for 4x4 and 30 for 5x5. More on that in how many songs you need. Short on time? Our Halloween party hits playlist is built this way, pure Halloween first and then alternating with hits, in a 40 and a 60 song version. For a Spanish-speaking crowd, use the Halloween fiesta playlist with reggaeton instead.
2. Paste the link into Bingofy and choose how many cards you need. Every card is different.
3. Pick a Halloween design. Monster Bash has a drippy pumpkin-orange title and cartoon pumpkins, ghosts and bats. Witching Hour is pencil sketches on parchment-colored paper. Or add a Halloween sticker pack to any design, and every card gets its own random mix of monsters around the songs. The card design guide shows everything you can change.
4. Print and hand out cards and pens as people arrive.
5. Play 20 to 40 seconds of each song. On the dance moments, let the chorus run.
6. Play for a line first, then a full card. Two or three rounds over the night is the sweet spot.

The Halloween songs and the hits all end up on the cards. So the alternating playlist isn’t only a better party, it’s a better game too: the spooky songs are easy to recognize, and the hits keep it from being too easy.

4. The host’s costume: the best one, or the funniest

The host sets the tone. If the person on the mic dresses up, everyone else feels allowed to go all in. If they show up in jeans, the room reads it as “we’re doing this halfway.”

There are two ways to get it right:

• Go all out: a vampire DJ with a cape over the decks, a mad scientist in a lab coat, Beetlejuice (“say his name three times” works great as a mic bit).
• Go gloriously cheap: a bedsheet ghost with sunglasses, a cardboard-box robot, a toilet-paper mummy.

We’ve tried the second option. At one of our Halloween bingos we hosted as a super shabby Dracula and a mummy made of toilet paper. Easily the worst costumes in the room, and it was one of the most fun nights we’ve had. When the hosts look ridiculous, nobody else is scared of looking ridiculous.

Whatever you wear, keep your hands free, your mouth clear for the mic and your eyes on the cards.

5. Prizes: themed, a bit absurd, and always a drink

Prizes don’t need to be expensive. They need to be funny and on theme, and the moment of handing them over has to be a show.

The drink rule: every winner gets a drink. A shot, a cocktail, a drink ticket. It’s the prize nobody ever says no to, and it gets people to the front. Always have an alcohol-free version ready, and at family parties make that the only version.

Themed drinks:

• A blood-red cocktail: vodka and cranberry, red sangria, or anything with grenadine
• Red jelly shots or shots served in plastic test tubes
• A green “witch’s brew” punch, with or without alcohol

Costume add-ons (the best line-round prizes, because people put them on straight away):

• Plastic fangs, fake blood, devil horns, a witch hat or a cape
• Glow sticks or face paint
• A roll of toilet paper: the instant mummy kit

Absurd prizes for the big round: a giant plastic spider, a real pumpkin, a bucket of sweets, a homemade “Scariest Dancer of the Night” medal. Save the best thing, a bottle or the costume-contest crown, for the full card.

6. Make people perform

This is where a good Halloween party becomes a great one. When someone shouts “Bingo!”:

1. Bring them up front. No winning from the back of the room.
2. Ask their name and their costume on the mic. “And who are you tonight?”
3. Make them act like it. The vampire bites the air, the zombie limps up, the witch “casts” the next song, the ghost boos the crowd.
4. Check the card while the room counts down.
5. Hand over the prize with a round of applause.

A few extra rules that work:

• Bingo in character: you have to shout it in your costume’s voice.
• Tie? Dance-off. Two winners on the same song? Ten seconds of Thriller, and the crowd picks the winner.
• Team cards for shy guests: let a group share one card and pick who goes up.

7. Talk to people. All night.

The host isn’t a playlist with a microphone. Between songs, talk to the room:

• Ask “Who’s one away?” before the next song. Instantly, everyone’s watching their card.
• Learn names when people win and use them later: “Dracula Dave, you’re one away again?”
• Shout out costumes during the game. Everyone spent effort on theirs and wants it noticed.
• Read the room. If the hits are getting more dancing, change the ratio. If people are talking over the clips, make them shorter.
• Don’t talk over the chorus. Talk in the gaps, then let the song do the work.

For the full host playbook, mic and all, read the music bingo host guide.

Example run sheet for a three-hour Halloween party

Running Halloween music bingo in a bar?

Halloween is one of the best nights of the year to fill a venue. Tie the prizes to your menu (a free cocktail for each line, a bottle for the full card) and promote it as a costume night. The music bingo for bars guide covers pricing, promotion and how to run it on a busy night.

Ready? Create your Halloween music bingo: paste your playlist, choose Monster Bash or Witching Hour, and print. Up to 15 cards are free. All that’s left is your costume.