We thought it would be useful to provide a few tips for aspiring quiz masters out there.
If you’re looking for help with running an online quiz we also have you covered with the live online quizzes page.
Ten Tips
- Organisation – Make sure you’re organised, if your quiz drags on too long people will get impatient. A few things to think about organising are:
- Marking the answers – who marks them? You, or by passing answers to other teams, think how long this will take because you still have to announce the scores at the end.
- Ensure you have enough copies of everything printed. Answer sheets and picture rounds most likely.
- Start on time – Don’t wait too long for late players to arrive.
- Read the quiz through a few times to look for difficult words to pronounce or confusing wording.
- Keep some spare pens handy.
- Pacing – which is covered below.
- Pacing – a 30 question quiz should take around 90 minutes. A gap of around a minute between each question, and a couple of minutes between rounds should be fine.
- Be thorough – Read the quiz through a few times to look for difficult words to pronounce or confusing wording.
- Visibility – Make sure everyone can hear you and if possible move around between questions to see if everyone is happy.
- Be professional – You’ll sometimes encounter difficult people or technical problems. Make sure you’re calm and polite when dealing with any issues.
- Ask for help – if you need something during the quiz, then ask, don’t disrupt the flow of the quiz if possible.
- Have a break – Somewhere around the middle of the quiz – between rounds – have a break of 10 minutes or so. This is for obvious reasons.
- Repeat questions – Repeat questions should be asked for at the end of the round to try and avoid disrupting the flow of the quiz.
- Background Noise – Depending on the environment there may be people present who are not taking part in the quiz. If this becomes a problem then the establishment owner should be made aware.
- Don’t get drunk – Obviously this is completely personal preference. Sometimes the quiz master being a little tipsy can be fun and amusing, sometimes a bit to drink can help with nerves. However a drunken quiz master is rarely fun for anyone but themselves.