How to Host a Bar Trivia Contest
Staging a trivia contest in a bar can drum up business on a slow night. Although satellite trivia services can entertain patrons, an in-house trivia contest or pub quiz can stimulate their interest and boost sales through competition with others, interaction with the host and a set of challenging questions.
- Difficulty:
- Moderate
Instructions
Things You'll Need
- Master of ceremonies (quizmaster, emcee, host)
- Trivia questions covering various subjects
- Buzzer or signaling system (optional)
- Prizes
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Preparing the Contest
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1
Pick a night and time to stage the contest. Schedule the trivia contest on a night slow enough that it will improve business, but not on a night so slow that it would annoy the patrons. Plan the contest on the same night and time every week, allowing for holidays, so patrons know when to come and play.
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2
Establish the duration of a contest session, which should be based on the bar's usual business for that night. Usually, the contest should run from one to two hours, shorter if other entertainment is planned for later in the evening and longer if not.
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3
Set up the rules of play. Decide if everyone should be allowed to play or if contestants need to qualify in some way, such as through a sign-up sheet or by paying an entry fee. Determine whether players play as individuals or may play as teams. If everyone can play, either let the patrons decide whether they play alone or in teams and set an upper limit on team size, or require all teams to be the same size. This will give team members an equal chance of winning.
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4
Decide how players will answer the questions, verbally or in writing. Writing answers requires providing them with answer sheets and makes for a slower-paced contest, but allows patrons who arrive during the run of the contest to catch up by getting the questions they missed. Answering verbally requires the use of a buzzer system and typically requires players to arrive at the contest's start.
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5
Determine what prizes will be awarded. Prizes may be furnished by the bar, such as a bar tab, from contest sponsors or a cash kitty formed from the entry fees contestants pay to play.
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6
Promote the contest through flyers, local media and word-of-mouth. Often, sponsors providing prizes can assist with the promotion.
Preparing the Questions
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1
Determine how many questions should be asked during the evening and how long players have to answer them. If players answer in writing, give them until the end of the contest to answer them all, thus requiring a small number of questions. If players answer verbally, have them answer in a short period of time, 5 or 10 seconds, which requires many more questions.
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2
Choose the subject matter for questions. A heavy concentration of sports questions is appropriate for a sports-themed bar, but in general, the questions should cover a broad range of topics. Questions should be neither too easy nor too hard; on average, players should be able to answer about two-thirds of them correctly.
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3
Decide the question format: single question-answer, multiple-choice, multiple-answer, true-false or fill in the blank. While all formats can be used together, the question-answer format should be used the most. Multiple-answer questions ("Name the 12 signs of the Zodiac") are ideal for tie-breaker questions, as are those requiring the players to guess as close to the value of a numeric answer as possible ("How old was Methuselah when he died?").
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4
Establish guidelines for judging the correctness of an answer. A simple judging standard is that for questions answered verbally, the pronunciation should fit the correct English spelling, while for written answers, the spelling should fit the correct English pronunciation. For answers not based on English spelling or pronunciation, be more lenient.
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5
Write the questions or get them from a pub quiz service. Questions may and should come from many sources and should be written well enough in advance of the contest to allow for verification of the answers before use.
Hosting the Contest
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1
Pick someone with a good speaking voice who relates well to people to emcee the contest. The host should come across as knowledgeable about trivia, but not overbearingly so.
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2
Have the emcee familiarize himself with the contest rules and read over the questions prior to the contest to familiarize himself with how to pronounce the words of the question and the answer.
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3
Remove any questions the emcee has difficulty with before the contest starts. It is not fair to let the emcee discard questions during the contest, as the players may very well know what the emcee doesn't.
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4
Start the contest, and at the end, award prizes.
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1
Tips & Warnings
A professional buzzer system isn't necessary, but the signaling system should use a light to let the host quickly identify which player or team has buzzed in first. For team play, each player should have his own signaling button.
Put the judging standards down in writing so that if anyone asks how responses are judged, they can read for themselves. Usually, a verbal explanation will suffice.
Do not simply copy questions wholesale from trivia games. Often the information is outdated or simply incorrect, to prevent copying.
