Make Your Quiz Your Own
Added: 29 May 2023
Author: One Stop Trivia
When I started hosting trivia nights, I stuck with a pretty standard formula - 30 Questions (split into General Knowledge, Geography, Science, Entertainment, History, and Music), 10 Pictures, 10 song intros, break at half time, mark everything at the end. And don't get me wrong, this format works fine, but it can get quite same-same after a while.
After leaving that quiz after a year or so, due to other commitments, I ended up at my current quiz, where I was the third host since it had started a few years previously. The quiz was similar to the old quiz format, but also different enough to keep it more interesting.
The new quiz format was:
5 rounds - 3 question rounds, 1 tabletop round, and 1 music intros round.The Question Round categories change based on what I want to write a round about, although most weeks will include General Knowledge, and one from Science, Geography, or Entertainment. Other rounds tend to be themed, rather than on a specific topic.
On top of this though, each round is 12 questions, but the teams only have to answer 10 questions. They can choose any 2 questions they want to get rid of, and they won't be marked on them. The teams at our quiz indicate these by writing or drawing a beer mug in for the question (If they don't add their beer mugs, their last 2 are automatically 'beer mugged').
We mark after each round and scores are public so teams know where they stand in the rankings. As another bonus, once during the quiz, each team can mark a round with a star before handing it to be marked, and any points that are scored get doubled. This all adds to the strategy of the game as well as the trivia knowledge - are you using the tar at the right time? are you choosing the right questions to beer mug?
And to keep things fresh, half way through the quiz, there is an individual round with free drinks up for grabs. It is done in the form of a 50/50 round (true/false, higher/lower, older/younger, real/fictional, etc), where players stand, answer by raising/lowering their hands, sitting down if incorrect, and the last 2-3 people standing get a free drink. (One of my favourite times doing this round was where I gave a quote and the players had to say if it was the Dalai Lama or Charles Manson, and it was surprisingly hard!)
Each of the previous hosts had added something to the format, and I decided I wanted to do the same, and after some consideration, and format tinkering later I had added the gambling question at the end of the quiz. The way I do this is a single, difficult, multiple choice question with 5 possible answers on a sheet. The teams have to choose their answer, and select how many points they want to gamble - 1, 2, or 3. If they get it right, they get that many points, if they get it wrong, they lose that many points. The teams seem to like this, and it allows teams who can't win to still go for our consolation prize (a free round of drinks for 2nd last place team - so they still have to try!) by deliberately getting it wrong.
I wonder what the next host will bring to the quiz when I eventually step down, but I certainly hope they bring a piece of themselves to the quiz, as it definitely made it more fun for me (and hopefully the players!)