Karaoke Forums

There's a venue where I do karaoke every Saturday evening that's looking to fill their Friday evenings... They've tried bands with little or no success. Same with single entertainers. And, in an effort to attract more & varied clientele, they'd prefer not to have karaoke two nights in a row.

To me, the place is ripe to try Trivia nights..

Problem is, there are no other trivia nights in our city that I am aware of, so I have no experience in running such a show...

Are there standard guidelines & procedures? Websites where I can purchase Q&As? Topics that are more popular than others? Topics that are taboo?

Are there websites dedicated to running trivia shows that I could consult?

This looks like a golden opportunity for me, and I wouldn't like to see it slip away.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

I ran trivia nights for about 8 months a few years ago. Here's some tips:

1) You don't need to buy the trivia. There are hundreds of free trivia question sites out there. Just make sure you vary the topics.

2) The typical format is THREE rounds of THREE questions. In the first round, the participants can wager 1, 2, or 3 points on their confidence in the answer. On the other two rounds, they can wager 2, 4, or 6. At the end of each round, there is a very difficult multi-part question, where the participant gets a bonus point for each part of the question they get right (i.e., name the last 5 winter Olympic cities, or something like that). At the end of all three rounds, there is a FINAL question where the participants can wager up to 10 points.

3) There is usually a 5 point bonus for BEST TEAM NAME. You can either decide who wins this yourself, or ask a bartender to pick their best so it looks more impartial.

4) To promote the bar, you can give XX bonus points for ordering a certain food special or drink/shot special. Like after round one, any team that orders a shot gets 3 bonus points.

5) THE BIGGEST ONE!! You MUST walk around and police cell phone usage. Nothing will kill a trivia night faster than a host that turns a blind eye to cell phone usage during the show. There will be a couple cheaters at EACH and EVERY show, and everyone that's playing will know who they are, so you HAVE to enforce strict penalties for cell phone usage. What I did was I brought a basket for each table and asked that teams put their cell phones in the basket during questions. If they wanted to use their cell after they had turned in their response, no problem, but they HAD to be in the basket during the question. Again, there will be multiple cheaters at every show you do, and the non-cheaters demand that the host is running a fair contest, or they will not come back.

That's about all I can think of. I also played filler music between questions, and often did trivia questions involving the music I played. It's just all about running a fair show and keeping everyone engaged!

Good luck!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Speaking of cell usage.

At the best trivia night I have seen, the host nipped this in the bud with a very short time limit. The question is asked and the team has 30 seconds (or maybe it was 45) to write down the answer and run it up to the host. The host then announces the answer. He holds all the slips and tally's them all at the end of the round. Most people are not fast enough to Google a complex answer, write it down and run it up to the host in 30 seconds. Either you know the answer, or you don't.

I made a quiz for some friends recently, downloaded all the questions from http://readymadepubquiz.com/

Print out some answer sheets..short time limit to stop the cheaters, easy

Hey,

We've been running trivia 6 nights a week for about three years now and have learned so many things. Most of the "ready trivia packages" that you get online are either very tough or obscure in nature.

We started making up our own trivia shows shortly after starting simply because people liked it more. The topics were more suited for "live" trivia and we wanted music to be part of our show.

My wife, Denise has recently set up a website that breaks down exactly what you need to do for trivia nights and complete trivia packages that are trivia tested and very fun to host. www.triviapackages.com . Check it out

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Sound Choice and Chartbuster Certified

I ran trivia for quite a while. Pacing is everything. IMHO it needs to be computer based with signal buttons to keep everyone involved. While you can't technically encourage drinking in any way due to some local laws.... it helps.

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Okay, who took my pants?

I'll have to put in my two cents here. I own 3 DJ Trivia regions and have been successful with it. You can get more information at djtrivia.com, but the things that attracted me were:
1. Protected territory, DJ Trivia is a very unique product and that was very important to me to have the exclusive rights.
2. On-screen questions and scoreboard. Teams always know where they stand after every question.
3. Technology driven, scoring is automated for you once you enter the answers.
4. Graphic elements like photos, flags, maps etc. that foil cheating and they are almost always for the bonus points at the end of the round.
5. You (or your hosts) just download your games each day through the software interface, no writing questions, no research to do, and once you upload the results of your games, they port into an online scoreboard as well.
6. Venue reports - I can run team and player numbers for any show we've done, so I can show the bar owners exactly how many teams and players I had on any given night, even can run year to year comparisons.
7. The way the scoring is set up, any team can win the game, even on the last question, so players don't leave the game halfway through, because they're never out of it.
8. It's DJ Trivia, so instead of playing random music off your phone or laptop, the hosts create a playlist that goes with the game, so that each song has some type of reference to the question.
9. We run leagues every 14 weeks, which keeps player coming back every week, and with the automated scoring, you don't have to keep up with it.

So there, that's pretty much my sales pitch to the venues, hope this helps.

I went to a trivia night here in town - the way they handled cheaters is by offering a special prize for anyone who spots a cheater and points them out to the host in time to catch them. I didn't see a single cell phone all night since everybody wanted a shot at the "special prize" (unspecified as to what that might have been)

How do you manage this? Do you have a guy with a bat?

There are like 25-30 trivia shows here in my town. Downtown alone on Tuesdays, there are 4 trivia nights on one block, two of which are in bars right beside each other. I don't understand how you can "protect a territory" of trivia shows when you are working with independentally-owned establishments!

You mean just no one else can have the "DJ Trivia" product in your regions? Why couldn't I just emulate your show and do pretty much same thing you are doing at the bar next door (or at your bar for less $$$) without having to buy into the product? I know it won't be exactly the same thing, but I bet I could do almost the same show to the point the patrons wouldn't care without having to buy anything or protect any turf.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

At risk of creating the next legal quagmire, I would simply refer you to the DJTrivia folks and let them see if they have a case against you.

-Chris

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-Chris

It's a software package, an on-screen game, automated league scoring, etc. and the name is trade marked, it's a national brand. Same reason people buy any other type of franchise, genius, it's a turnkey solution for a company to take and use without having to recreate the wheel. If I were you I'd scrap that automated karaoke robot show that's making you rich and try your hand at trivia.

WHAAAA? It's like you were actually AT my show last night!




Actually, I don't run an automated karaoke robot show, so give me the credit I deserve - I stand there and push a few buttons!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I think he's thinking of 'toqer' since he's the only one here that runs a fully automated show, not 'topher' that is asking questions in this thread.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I like Topher's basket idea - very effective and low tech.

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Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!