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How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players?

How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players?

“Questions, ideas and the format are all crucial if you wish to run a trivia night that is going to attract and sustain some of the finest trivia players in the land”

 

Welcome back to the blog and I hope you are having a good week thus far with plenty of trivia hosting. Today, we are going to switch themes a little and look at a new area which we have not came across before, and that is booking, running and organising a trivia event for serious trivia players.

Now, I know what you are thinking but yes, there are hundreds of thousands of serious trivia players across the world who find the average pub quiz too easy and devote their lives to travelling the world playing in trivia contests, learn facts night after night to keep ahead of the game and want to take on as much quizzing as possible. You need to be able to adapt to provide this as not only will the gigs be well paying but it’s a great circle to be in.

 

However, setting for this kind of audience is tricky, sometimes impossible and it may

How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players? – The Venue

Getting the venue right for a serious trivia contest can be essential. What you do need to bare in mind is that people from a serious trivia background will be prepared to travel and you may end up with a room full of people from all over the country. I know this from experience….you make an event, they will come. So when picking a venue consider parking and public transport arrangements as a must!

How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players? – No Gimmicks

Generally serious quiz players do not much care for gimmicked rounds such as lists, connections, anagrams, family fortunes etc etc. You need to have more of a straight up quiz, with serious questions aimed at players who take this very seriously and are going to know a lot about every subject. By all means have themed rounds but drop any ideas you have about joker rounds or such like. Keep it simple!

How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players? – Questions above all else

I cannot stress this point enough….if you are hosting a serious trivia contest you have a room full of players who are concerned primarily with the questions. The beer, the fun and the company is one thing but these players are here mainly for the questions and the questions only. They expect quality so all your planning and preparation in putting together a great question set is what matters. They won’t care so much about the glitz, glamour and technology you sometimes may use in your quiz. They want solid, well researched and interesting trivia questions.

How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players? – Testing

…. And this directly links straight into the next point….you need to test the questions. Get on facebook, register on some forums and get involved in communities where serious trivia players compete and get them to test your questions. Common mistakes early on when setting for these events is to set them too hard so you need to find that delicate balance.

How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players? – Rules and team sizes

You have to set rules for these players…..so they know what they are competing with. Do you accept surnames only? Do you want correct spellings? These things are common considerations in any serious trivia event and thus they need to be taken into consideration in yours. If you don’t prepare to set rules you prepare to fail. Also, if running a team quiz then team size needs to be capped. I would never normally suggest doing this in a normal pub quiz situation but if looking to run a serious quiz then you need to cap this. Depending on how many people are coming 4-7 is always good.

How to run a successful contest for serious trivia players? – Duration

Remember throughout all this post that serious quiz players are indeed that……serious. They will travel, spend money and invest in their hobby…I should know as I am one myself (See below). And they will be prepared to quiz for hours on end…some events are just three days of pure quizzing, others are all day marathons of individual contests, team quizzes and fun rounds. If youre looking to widen the appeal and get people travelling you need to run an event that is going to last a while. If people travel 4 hours to your quiz and are there for an hour, they wont be coming back.

 

 

Before end, I hear you ask….how do you know this? Well I am one of those trivia players who would think nothing of travelling hours and hours to attend a great national quiz event, invest my wages into my hobby so I have seen from the inside what to expect as well as ran events from the other side. Its such a big subject and I am more than welcome to field any questions you have about it. Please pop questions in the comments and Ill be more than happy to help.

 

So there we have it….see what I mean? Tough isn’t it….Pleasing a crowd of committed quiz players is tricky. Providing them with quality questions week after week is even harder. But if you can take on board the tips from up above and really nail this area of work it can be profitable but remember –

  • Its all about the questions
  • Establish rules and get a format that works
  • Plan and prepare

Thanks for reading today and I hope this last few days of blogging has been of some use to you. Remember if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments about the blog please feel free to get in touch with us and until then happy trivia hosting!

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