If you are a bar owner you want the quiz host to run the night in the best interest of your venue.

Whether you have a professional host or a staff member run your night you need to give them instructions on how you want the night run. Don't leave it in their own hands.

When building a trivia night from scratch you are building an asset for your venue. You are increasing your clientele on that night and that means increased revenue and a more valuable business. So when you build the trivia night, you need to make sure the patrons are coming for the quiz and not the antics of the host.

Several years ago I was invited to quiz night. It was run by a man with a thick Scottish accent, probably in his late 50's. He had a surly direct misdemeanor. The quiz began and we soon found the questions were terrible, they had ambiguous answers or were on impossible topics. When anyone questioned an answer the host hurled a litany of abuse at the perpetrator of the challenge, much to the amusement of the crowd. However the bar was full, bursting at the seams. At first, I couldn't understand it as the host was everything I would not look for in a good quiz master. However I realized that the patrons were not really there for the quiz and the quiz was just an excuse for the side show. And had this rude obnoxious charismatic Scot left the night, so probably would most of the patrons In this case the asset to this venue was the host not the quiz. Lose the host, lose the asset.

For the bar or club owner the whole aim of a trivia night is to put more patrons in the venue and as importantly have them spending money over the bar. It is not enough to have people if they have their wallet sewn shut.

This is why the tone of the night is very important. If the tone is too serious then patrons attending will intentionally drink less to stay as alert as possible. This is against the goals of the owner. The tone of the quiz must be one of fun.

I ran across a very good quiz host recently. One thing he did that worked well for him was he read out clever answers. When teams didn't know the answer to the question, they would try and make up a funny or clever answer. During the entire night the host read out only two of these clever answers. The crowd enjoyed the joke. If it was an enthusiastic response he then asked "Does this answer deserve a point?" and based on the crowd's further response he gave a point or not. On the night I was there in both these cases no extra points were given.

This was just one way that this patron added to the sense of fun to the night and took away the seriousness.

A trivia quiz night is a form of entertainment. It must be entertaining. Take any good movie and stretch out the timeline and it will be less satisfying. A trivia night is no different it has to progress at a steady pace. It is better the night finishes with your patrons wanting ten more questions rather than wishing the quiz finished ten questions ago. This is more about how the quiz progresses as a whole rather than how many questions there are in total. Bringing different elements to keep the patrons on their toes and moving the quiz along without too long breaks will make a more entertaining night.

So the main criteria for you quiz host. He must be a facilitator of the quiz, all he has to do is run the night, not be the night. He is to run the trivia night as fun night not a serious entrance exam to University. He has to keep the night moving at a good pace so that it is still entertaining and not boring. You may want to even give him a print out of our page on the right host.

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