How To Host Your Own Trivia Night At Your Home, Office, Or Party

Learning how to host a trivia night for your private event is incredibly easy–but, do you have the personality and gumption to ACTUALLY host and run a successful trivia game night?  Well, you’re about to learn what it takes–not just the nuts and bolts, but the little touches that will make all the difference.

Let’s Start With The Basics

How many questions? How many rounds? How many questions per round? AHH!  So many questions–and here comes all the answers.  The people over at www.OCTrivia.com have put together a great format for your trivia night. They’ve been doing pub and team and corporate trivia for years and, over that time, have discovered the best layout for an involving, exciting, engaging, trivia game-play.

Teams or Individuals?

Let’s start with this most important question. It’s imperative to run TEAMS!  Answering trivia questions alone is boring as all get-out. Having a few people to talk about what the answer might be (you know, interaction and FUN?!?) is EXACTLY why we’re doing this in the first place!  Always have teams, anywhere from 2 to 8 per team works well.

How Long Should The Game Last?

I recommend 90 minutes (about the length of a movie).  Each round should consist of 10 questions and each round should take about 15 minutes to get through.  A 90 minute game RUN BY AN EXPERIENCED HOST would be 6 rounds of trivia (60 questions) and THAT will certainly keep the players focused and having fun!  Now, if you’re an amateur and NEW to hosting, it’s going to take longer to get the hang of this. So for a new host, I recommend 4 rounds to start.  Bump it up to 5 rounds on your next go. If all goes well, shoot for the pro-level 6 rounds!  Finally, if you’d rather take a more leisurely pace and enjoy the night yourself with less stress, go with fewer rounds.

What Kind Of Trivia Rounds?

According to OC Trivia LIVE! here’s the best layout for your game.

1. Start With An Opening General Knowledge round. 
   This will warm everyone up and get their trivia-answering juices flowing.
2. Move on to a Picture Round.
   Pass out printed sheets (available at OC Trivia) without the answers of course.
3. How about History? Sports? Wildcard? Name That Tune or Band?
   Here’s where you can have some fun. Feel free to add whatever category you think your friends will want to get quizzed about.  Depending on your Hosting Level, this might be one, two, or three rounds.
4. End with a General Knowledge round.
   The quiz rounds at OC Trivia are great because the have these awesome FINAL ROUNDS where Question 10 is worth 50 to 100 points!  This really stokes up the competition level and makes it anyone’s game. So exciting!

How About Supplies?

You’ll need each team to have 4 to 6 answer sheets. You could print some 1/4 pagers with 1 through 10 on them. Or you could just give them 4 to 6 Post-Its. It’s up to you!  They will also need a pen.

          Sample Answer Sheet

If you’ve got a large group, I recommend a speaker and a microphone. Hopefully everyone will be talking and having so much fun, it’ll be tough to get their attention!

How do I Actually Host This Night?

Okay kids, this is going to be a big section, because I’m going to walk you through exactly what should happen from the beginning of the night to the end of the game.

1. Choose teams – Group everyone up into their teams and get them to their table.
2. Tell them to choose their team names – What are they going to call their team? What about Trivia Newton-John? Or Let’s Get Quizzical?  Tell them to have fun with this!
3. Have them write their team name on each answer sheet – There’s nothing worse than getting a few answer sheets from teams that you have NO IDEA who they belong to!
4. Go over the rules you’ve decided on – The #1 rule for me is NO PHONES. They have to be in their pockets or purses and not in their hand or on the table! iWatches are also removed. No cheating allowed…that’s not “trivia” that’s “research” and anyone can do that.  I also tell them if I see a phone during the questions I will deduct 10 points from their score. Ouch.
5. Go over the format – Here’s what you need the teams to know, feel free to use these as your announcement guide:
   1. There will be (4-6) rounds, 10 questions each round.
   2. I’ll ask a question, repeat it, then give your team about a minute to quietly discuss it and write down your answer. I’ll even play music so you can talk more freely (it’s a good idea).
   3. I’ll then move on to question 2, and so on.
   4. Once we reach question 10, you will write down your answer and bring it up to me so I can tally your score. (Score 10 points per correct answer, NO lost points for wrong answers, NO lost points for spelling, and never double or nothing or all or nothing. If there’s a 20 point question and they get one part right, give them that 10 points).
   5. After I’ve entered each teams scores for round 1 (on an Excel spreadsheet or old school paper and pen), I’ll go through the questions once more, but giving you the answers.
   6. (At this point, you should introduce each team with applause!)
   7. After that, I’ll hand out the printed Picture Round, one sheet to each team (or some other round).
   8. (Rinse and repeat for the other rounds.)
   9. AFTER ROUND 2, it’s a fun idea to announce who is leading. This will get them cheering, jeering, and pushing to climb higher!  Do not announce the winner just BEFORE the final round though. It kind of takes the fun out of it if one team is crushing everyone.
   10. Once you’ve gone through all of the rounds and the game is over, tally up the scores.
   11. Announce the winners, starting with 3rd, 2nd, then 1st place

The above is also your format for you as a host. It’s 10 steps to follow as a trivia host.  

So, that’s about it! The most important part of the whole night is having trivia questions that are not too hard, but not to easy either.  The format for each round of questions at OC Trivia is perfect.  There are 5 questions that are easy to medium in difficulty. 2 or 3 questions that are a little harder. 1 to 2 questions that are almost impossible (if they get it right, they are cheating ha ha).

They’ve also added a BONUS 10 onto some questions. So you have a regular trivia question, but add a usually VERY hard additional question on the same subject. HAVE THE TEAMS WRITE BOTH ANSWERS ON THE SAME ANSWER NUMBER. So there will be two answers on, say, question 7.

YOU CAN DO IT!

If you prepare, practice a little, know the questions, and be okay with messing up a little, you should have little trouble learning how to host a trivia night.  If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact OC Trivia. They are very helpful!

Good luck!