Hot Picks: Barmaggedon

In this playful format, long-time friends Blake Shelton and Carson Daly throw open their doors and invite celebrities friends to compete in challenges inspired by bar games.

Barmaggedon was dreamed up by country music star Shelton, who owns his own bar, which acts as the stage for the show. The format looks to “elevate and amplify the bar games we love so much”, according to NBC Universal Formats vice-president of format distribution Ana Langenberg.

Hosted by Shelton and Daly alongside WWE wrestling legend Nikki Bella, in each episode the celebrities compete in five games, while a ‘Wheel of Redemption’ introduces further mini challenges.

Traditional games such as beer pong and cornhole (a variation of indoor quoits) are super-sized to ‘Air Cannon Cornhole’, ‘Keg Curling’ and ‘Drunken Axe Hole’.

The show’s added dimension is that the members of the public, paired with celebrities, have all been the subject of an embarrassing viral video, with the show offering them a chance to shed that tag by excelling in the games.

There is no cash prize, only “bragging rights” for the victors, Langenberg says, with the show’s irreverence providing its USP in the global market. “It’s all completely about the fun,” she says. “It’s light and the talent really helps it to cut through the competition.”

Barmageddon’s central tenets of viral video and bar-game culture help the format skew younger, differentiating it even further from rivals, she adds.

Langenberg suggests Europe’s strong bar culture makes it a natural target for the series, with the format already attracting interest in the Nordics. However, the premise is “recognised almost everywhere” and the gameplay is easily localised, she adds.