Once you commit to a quiz or trivia night you want to build numbers as quickly as possible to maximize your return.

So let's suppose you've committed your venue to a quiz night; you've arranged a host and some prizing. You've even done some basic advertising to attract any die-hard quiz patrons. So what do you do now to keep increasing the patronage from week to week? A full venue adds atmosphere and makes the night more appealing and more importantly means more money over the bar.

This is where many trivia quiz nights can fail before they get the chance to get established. Advertising alone may only attract one or two teams or even less. I've personally hosted the first quiz night at a bar and had only one team turn up. On that night I went around the venue and invited other people to join the quiz. (I do this regardless of team numbers.) I even invited a patron who was sitting by himself. We started and ended the night with four teams. Two of those teams only had two members each. The patron I invited by himself was meeting a friend and they both decided to stay. The one team that actually came to the bar to do the trivia quiz did have six members, but all the same it was a poor night.

On that night the bar manager was all set to call the trivia quiz off. But I convinced him to persist and within ten weeks the bar was attracting at least 60-70 people. The venue now is packed out at its 100+ patron limit. This is a bar that on a Tuesday previous to the trivia quiz night was lucky to see a dozen people throughout the entire night.

Getting this night up and running quickly relied on two things. The first is, we started. No matter how many people attend your first night, it is always only a start on which the night will grow. As a quiz night typically grows virally, "by-word-of-mouth", the more people you start with, the quicker the night will grow. Additionally the sooner you start the quicker you will get to a profitable level of patronage.

I also asked the bar manager if there were four or five regulars from different groups that he felt he knew well enough to personally ask to form teams and attend the following week to get the night rolling. He said he knew many of the regular patrons well, but didn't feel any of them would be eager to attend a quiz night.

I then asked if there was maybe three patrons, he could think of, that would "help him out" by coming along even if they weren't that eager as a "personal favor". They didn't have to come every week just the following week. He could repay the favor with a beer.

To his credit he did ask three patrons who brought between two and four friends each. The number of teams didn't explode but the number of members in each team slowly increased to a point where we had to split some teams up. And additionally a new team would arrive now and again. Incidentally, in this case all three of the invited patrons became regulars. The rest, as they say, is history!

So once you decide to start,

• do get organized,
• do advertise and
• do personally invite patrons.

There are two invites. The invite to a few key regulars who will make up a team, to "help you out" and "get the night started". Even if the patrons who attend the first night don't remain regulars many of their friends may.

The other invite is to patrons who happen to be in the venue on the night. I use an invite similar to this.

"Would you like to join tonight's trivia quiz, it's free entry, you might win a beer and can leave anytime?"

It is very easy for a group to reply "Yes, why not" to this question.

This invite is much more effective than a simple "Do you want to join the quiz night?" that will more often than not draw a negative response.

Use these simple tactics and you'll quickly have a quiz night to be proud of.

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