Hitster Live Experience: the music game for festivals and stadiums

Hitster Live Experience takes the guess the song and place the year game everyone knows from the box and blows it up to stadium scale. Instead of a small group around a table, an entire crowd plays at the same time from their own phones, with the action running on the big screen. It is made by Jumbo, the company behind Hitster, together with the live technology studio livewall, and it started rolling out across the Benelux, Germany, and the Nordics in 2026. This page explains what it is, how a round actually works, where you are likely to run into it, and, since you cannot buy or download it yourself, how to play the very same timeline game on your phone.

What is Hitster Live Experience?

Hitster Live Experience is not a box you buy or an app you download. It is a live event format, an interactive music moment that an organizer books to get a big audience playing together. Think of the gap where the energy in a room usually dips, halftime at a match, the changeover between two festival acts, the lull between speakers at a conference, and picture the whole crowd suddenly playing a music game on their phones instead. That is the slot it is built to fill.

The scale is the headline. A single session can run from a small crowd up to as many as 100,000 players at once, all joining from their own phones with no app to install and no account to create. You scan a QR code on the main screen and you are in. The music, the scores, and a live leaderboard all play out on the big screen so the room shares one moment rather than a hundred separate games.

How a round works

The mechanic is pure Hitster, stripped down so a huge crowd can keep up:

• Join with a QR code. A code goes up on the main screen, you scan it with your phone, and you are playing. No download, no login.
• A song plays. A track comes over the speakers, the same guess the year hook the boxed game is built on.
• Place it on your timeline. On your phone you drag the song into the right spot on your personal timeline, purely by the year you think it came out.
• Score on accuracy and speed. You earn points for putting the song in the correct position, and more for being fast about it.
• Watch the leaderboard. The standings update live on the big screen, so the whole crowd sees who is climbing.

Individual songs go by quickly to keep thousands of people engaged, and an organizer can run anything from a tight ten minute pause act to a full programme of up to an hour, depending on the event.

Where you will find it

Hitster Live Experience is aimed at moments where a big group is already gathered and needs something to do together. In practice that means:

• Sports events: halftime and stoppages, turning a stadium of spectators into players.
• Festivals and concerts: the changeovers between acts, keeping the crowd warm.
• Conferences and brand events: a shared ice-breaker or an energy lift between sessions.
• Corporate parties and drive-in shows: flagged by the makers as coming in 2027.

Early activations have been reported at events including JOE Paradice, the World Hockey Championship, and the Smukfest festival in Denmark, with the initial focus on the Benelux, Germany, and the Nordics. Because it is booked event by event rather than sold on a shelf, whether you come across it depends entirely on the shows and venues near you.

How it differs from the Hitster you can buy

It shares its DNA with the boxed game, but it is a different thing to get hold of and a different way to play. The core idea, hear a song and place it by release year, is identical. What changes is the scale, who runs it, and how you get access. Here is how the live show lines up against the boxed game and against playing the same style of game on your phone:

The catch for a curious player is the middle of that table: you cannot pick up Hitster Live Experience for yourself. It is sold to organizers, not to fans. If you played it at an event and want to play again, the boxed game and a phone app are your two routes home.

For event organizers: how it is booked

If you are on the other side of it and want to put Hitster Live Experience on at your own event, it is booked directly through the Hitster Live team rather than bought off the shelf. The makers offer it in three tiers, so you can take just the technology or a fully staffed show:

• DIY: the platform on its own, with your own host and technical crew running it.
• Plus: the platform with remote show support from the Hitster Live team.
• Full service: the complete package, with a DJ, a host, and the technical crew included.

Programmes are flexible, from a ten to thirty minute pause act to a longer block of up to an hour, and the team handles the scale so the QR join and the leaderboard work whether fifty people play or tens of thousands.

Played it at an event? Play it yourself

Here is the honest gap: there is no way to buy or download Hitster Live Experience as a person. It only exists as a show an organizer puts on. So if you played it at a festival or a match, loved the guess the year rush, and went looking for it afterwards, there is nothing consumer-facing to hand you, at least not under that name.

What you can do is play the exact same style of game on your phone. Tunigma is a guess the song and place the year timeline game that runs the music itself, with no cards to scan and no Spotify, Apple Music, or other streaming app or subscription, and it is a free download. It is the closest thing to keeping that live moment going at home, on a road trip, or at your own party. There is a fuller look on the Hitster alternative page, a wider rundown of the best Hitster alternatives, and an overview of the boxed range on the Hitster editions page.

Coming soon

Hitster is a trademark of its respective owner. Tunigma is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hitster.