Trivia Hosting-Written by long time player and host Michael Delmore, the first posting on this page but a long way down. TRIVIA HOSTING
Welcome to the exciting world of Trivia Hosting-It’s much more work than it appears, especially for those who have never hosted. You may get more criticism than praise for your hard work-try to take it with a grain of salt-trivia needs volunteers to host to keep t
rivia going- thanks for taking the chance. Here are some suggestions to help you along- this is in No way a criticism of any one host- Everyone who has hosted more than once has made mistakes-remember you are questioning trivia players whose nature is to check the facts and let you know if a question you asked was wrong, don’t take it personally. You will hear about 20 times more comments for a poor question than praise for a good question. That being said, here are some general suggestions:
Try to follow the format established by Barry who created the format, that is what people expect, some who have been playing for 20-30 years. Please resist the temptation to go to an Internet site and copy and paste many of your questions. Not only is this wrong, but only about 1 in 10 questions from these sites is good for our format. Use the Internet freely for research and ideas, however. Similarly, asking this week‘s news makes for poor questions, most trivia players believe current events are NOT trivia. For the Opening round it is helpful to develop a template of question Types- this doesn't have to be rigid, but it helps you balance out your round-suggested areas of questions include Old TV, New TV, Classic Movies, New Movies, science, health, cooking, geography, history, astronomy, characters, fashion, sports, celebrities, explorers, famous firsts, Literature,-You get the idea-If you try to use a format you will have a balanced round. You should notice I separated Old TV and Movies and New TV and movies- One of the great challenges is the vast range of trivia players- some are just 21 and some are 60+, A host needs to make trivia interesting for the wide generational gap, try to be inclusive this goes double for music. Resist the temptation to ask multiple questions on your specific hobby or interest in any quiz round. More than 2 questions on one subject are too many and will turn off many teams, We all like to ask questions about things with which we are familiar. Also be cautious about “Local” questions like UND sports or local celebrities. The team you play with may win when you host, that is natural given you likely have shared interests, but you should refrain from asking specific questions(especially very difficult ones) that have been discussed at your table. If you are wondering if your round is too hard, it probably is. Most hosts think their rounds are much easier than they actually play. When you are looking at a fact it is much easier in your head than you think. A good question to ask yourself when writing a question is: “How could people know that or have access to that information?” If they could only know by reading that one article or one book location or a single TV episode, Or this week’s Tidbits, then it probably is not a good question. Interesting facts like they minted 7 billion pennies last year,would not make a good question, there would be no way of knowing that, also don’t make it a guessing game with a multiple choice question like A) 3 Billion B) 5 Billion, C) 7 Billion D) 9 Billion, Since no one knows it is like: “I am thinking of a number between 1 and 4.”
Almanac questions especially in the quiz rounds, make poor questions, like what state is fourth in wheat production, unless you are looking at that page, no one knows, this is the same for music chart ranking and TV Nielsen ratings
People play to get correct answers, not to be stumped, if the winning team got 9-10 that means some teams got 4-5 or less, very frustrating. Hopefully every question you ask gets answered right by some team. You will have some question you think is easy that no one gets, learn from it and move on. Try to limit music questions in the quiz rounds, some teams do not play the music round and to be eliminated because they did not know what new album was released by U2, can be frustrating. Remember there are 17+ music questions each week and double that on the last Saturday Plus music free drinks, that’s enough. Do your research on questions, realize some questions have multiple answers, and the Internet has incomplete and misinformation, Try to confirm your answers. Resist the idea to ask the 20 hardest questions you ever heard or read. A full round of trivia- 2 written rounds, a music round and 7 free drink questions is a fair amount of work. Consider working with a partner and splitting the work. When you are in front of the microphone speak clearly and expect the crowd to be forgiving and helpful. Please try to balance the music round like the quiz round, there are many decades and types of music, Only playing all from the past 20-30 years will frustrate much of the crowd. Have fun but expect to do some work.
