What’s the best quiz you’ve ever been to?

[OhHoneyNo]

I’ve been tasked with writing a quiz for a fundraising event attended by my fellow school parents. I’m okay with the questions but I’m wanting some ideas for fun/interactive rounds. What are some of the best quizzes you’ve been to? I’ve got two general knowledge rounds, a food and drink round and a music round already. Thank you!

I think the best have a combination of things to do - one round questions, another on guess the faces, identify the first notes of a song, sounds of everyday objects, thst sort of thing, alongside traditional questions on topics. Good luck!

The best quizzes have a great cross section of rounds. I think an ‘in the news’ round is good, as is a sports round. A good music round with a decent sound system (we did tv theme tunes at the last one we ran), a digital white board that displays scores throughout, enough people so that the marking is not done by the adjacent table (I HATE this), an excellent MC, good table rounds - pictures are fine but no poor quality photocopies. No phones out at any time.

I’m also writing a school quiz so following! I’ve been to one that had guess the celebs mouth which was fun

Ones that aren't easy to cheat on!
It's really difficult to set quizzes now everyone has phones as there always seem to be one or two ultra competitive people who spoil it for everyone else

Some rounds I've used in the past are ones with links - for example 'what word links a Manchester Train station, a Queen and a plum'

Or one that was quite popular was when I re-wrote the opening lyrics of number 1 songs that people had to identify (for example, from 1975 'You’ve conned me for longer than I can remember, so I've decided it must finish' )

Rounds that always seem to go well….TV themes, guess the TV characters, anything to do with retro adverts or slogans, guess the year, guess the city from the skyline or a major landmark. If you’re using pictures or sound they do need to be clear.

The most important thing, no matter how high tech the equipment or how varied the rounds are is that you have double checked all your answers and that all answers are absolutely undisputed. Even the things that you think you know. It’s a nightmare if an answer turns out to be wrong…I’ve been at quizzes where we were told that Gwyneth Paltrow was married to Fran Healy, where the theme music for Cagney and Lacey was said to be from LA Law and the slogan for Toffos (A man’s gotta chew what a man’s gotta chew) was attributed to Texan Bars (a very common misconception!). Cue lots of arguing…people do take these things much more seriously than they think they will.

Edited to add that seeing @P00hsticks reply above reminded me of a similar round where lyrics were translated into a foreign language using Google translate and then back again. Some songs need to go back and forth a couple of times but you get some really good ones without needed to work something out for yourself.

The thing I dislike most are jeopardy type rounds, usually at the end of quiz, where either points are accumulated and all lost if you get a question wrong or where there is a question with say 5 clues and if you guess on the first one you get a huge number of points, essentially bringing the whole quiz down to that. It’s great for the team that wins….but everyone else might feel a bit robbed. Things like jokers where points are doubled for a round just make scoring more complicated.

A food round - have numbered paper plates for each table with different flavoured crisps to identify.

I really like the jeopardy round at the end as it levels the playing field somewhat. I also like marking each others papers because you get a bit of chat with the neighbouring team rather than all just sitting there totally separate.

i like picture or puzzle rounds that you have plenty of time for but print must be clear.

Make sure you can be heard clearly by everyone in the room but don't have a loudspeaker right next to someone's table.

Don't have "fun" extra rounds after the main quiz is finished, people just want to go home.

Have a tie break ready. What year with three facts from that year is good, closest wind but have another ready just in case.

Plenty of pens and scrap paper.