How to Run a Successful Trivia Night

Running a trivia night is a great way to raise funds for schools, non profit organizations, sports team etc...etc. There are a few things that you want to avoid and a few definite things that must be done.

In your initial planning stage while writing your questions try to come up with 10 categories or rounds of 10 questions. Once you have established your categories. DO NOT make your questions to hard, there is nothing worse than having a room full people feeling like they are stupid. If your questions are to hard you will stand the chance of loosing your audience, what I mean by this is people will loose interest very quickly if they feel they do not have a chance of doing well. My advice to you is to make 8 of the 10 questions fairly easy, questions that you think most people will have a chance of answering correctly. Make the remaining 2 questions fairly tough, things that most people may not know but not extremely difficult.

Most trivia night use a standard approach when setting up their categories, for example round 1 may be sports, round 2 is movies etc...etc. While there is nothing wrong with this approach you will find that people who do not know much about given category will lose interest during the given round. When I run my trivia nights I use a different approach i will make all the number 1's a sports questions and all the number 2's a movie question etc...etc. I have found that people will pay more attention if the categories are broken up in this manner.

Prior to the start of the first round announce that all teams need to put down the total amount of questions they think they will get right for the entire night on the upper right hand conner of the round 1 score sheet, this will be used as a tie breaker if any on the top 3 positions end in a tie.

Make sure you announce the decision of the judges are final, you don't want to waste time arguing or correct or incorrect answers. If at all possible try to have documentation for your answers or a laptop for Internet access to provide proof of correct or incorrect answers.

Do not spend a large amount of time in between questions 45 seconds to 1 minute should suffice.