At about 22:30, students from Swedish universities and colleges assemble with the flags and standards of student unions at the Blue Hall's grand stairway and balustrade, and the toastmaster or toastmadame calls a laureate from each prize category (in the order that Alfred Nobel listed the prizes in his will; namely Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Economics) to the podium for an acceptance speech.

[12] The Swedish royal family maintains a significant presence at the event; the Crown Prince is among the regular guests from the first banquet, and the monarch of Sweden first took part in 1951.

[23] The menu does not contain any pork to accommodate guests observing Jewish and Islamic dietary laws; in particular, deer and other game are reserved for the private banquet held by the Royal Court of Sweden on 11 December.

[26] The Nobel Banquet was first held in 1901 at the Hall of Mirrors inside the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm – a five-course meal for at least 113[a] male guests.

[33][c] During the 1979 banquet, a female student disrupted the entry procession of the guests of honour by performing an impromptu song on the grand staircase of the Blue Hall; she was subsequently removed from the event.

Averaging 1.2 million viewers annually in Sweden, the banquet's viewership on SVT often exceeds that of the Nobel Prize award ceremony itself.

[41] Science and entertainment elements define the broadcast; science content feature interviews with Nobel laureates, pre-recorded reports from their workplaces, and interviews with researchers and other experts in related fields, while entertainment segments feature discussions about the banquet menu, floral arrangements, and the attire and jewelry of female members of the Swedish royal family, as well as the divertissements and dessert parade.

[42] The presence of the Swedish royal family is considered a significant factor in the banquet's popularity;[43] a producer has reportedly instructed camera operators to feature images of Queen Silvia at least every 15 minutes to maintain viewer engagement.

Early broadcasts of the banquet primarily focused on entertainment content, with scientific content only becoming more prominent in the late 1980s; this shift coincided with the efforts of the Nobel Foundation and the wider scientific community to exercise greater control over Nobel Prize-related television programming to protect its trademark and intellectual property rights, as well as the growth of cable television in Sweden.

Viewers often dine while watching the broadcast, sometimes replicating courses from the actual banquet menu or adhering to its formal dress code.