Why Fat City exists

We're entertainers. We bring people together.

We are a society of entertainers who love bringing people together. Believe it or not, we even have morals and scruples. As entertainers we have an obligation to unite an audience and to break down the walls people walk in with. We really are trying to make the world a better place the best way we know how: with a microphone.

Times are hard for a lot of people. A game night is one of the few places left where strangers sit at the same table, laugh at the same wrong answer and leave knowing each other's names. That's why we do this.

What we believe

A room full of strangers is one good game away from being a crowd.
Everyone gets to play. Nobody should leave a game night feeling stupid.
Phones down, heads up. The best nights happen when people look at each other.
The host is the hero. Our job is to make you look great.

How we got here: on stage since 1999

I've been hosting a lot longer than this website has been around. My first shows were in 1999, hosting "Name That Tune" for TNT Enterprizes in Calgary, later working for Karaoke World and others before starting my own companies: first The Party Factory, and now Fat City.

More than twenty-five years of standing in front of rooms is the only qualification that matters here. Every game we sell got tried out on a live crowd first, which is why the questions land, why the rounds are the length they are, and why the songs are ones people actually shout along to. You can't work that out on paper. You find it out on a Tuesday night in a half-full bar.

How we help you do it

At Fat City we don't really have employees, we have Hosts. Fat City Hosts are freelance entrepreneurs, just like me, and plenty of them simply want to get their own people talking: a bar on a quiet Tuesday, an office before the holidays, a family after dinner. We hand you the night, tested and ready, so you can be the one who brings your people together.

People use our games to make a living too. We know that, and we want to help you do it. If that sounds like a career, start with The Trivia Host Handbook, on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.

What we make

Music dobOFF is our music bingo. Download it, print it, play it. Each pack prints up to 250 randomized cards, two to a sheet of letter paper, so the same purchase covers a living room or a packed brewery, and you can run it again next year. Most packs come with a ready-made Spotify and Apple Music playlist, so you press play instead of spending your Sunday hunting down songs. The Gold Club has every game we make.

Fat Bottom Trivia is the game show side: closer to Jeopardy!, but more interactive, with side-games, images and video, and hosts who get in close with the audience. It's not just trivia, it's an experience for everyone.

If you want the playbook behind all of it, I wrote it down. The Music Bingo Handbook covers the setup, the pacing and the hosting moves that turn a Tuesday crowd into regulars.

Want to try before you spend anything? The Bingo Card Generator is free and always has been, and with the rules that's genuinely everything you need to run a first night. There are also over 100 posts on our blog going back to 2016, written from real shows: what worked, what died on its face, and what I'd do differently.

Where we work

Everywhere, more or less. The games download from this website, so they work the same in Calgary, Charlotte or Christchurch, and people are already hosting Fat Bottom Trivia and Music dobOFF in countries around the world. If you'd rather we ran the show ourselves, we travel to you for a reasonable price: tell us your date and venue and we'll be straight with you about whether we can cover it.

Or just email me at dustin@fatcityentertainment.com. I read them all, even if it takes me a bit.

The most important thing is that the show goes on: that somewhere tonight a room full of people who came in as strangers are arguing about a song lyric. That's the whole job.

Yours truly,

Dusty Ramsbottom
Entertainer and Founder, Fat City Entertainment