Booksology Its face seems very easy to run a trivia event, but our version had some elements that really stand out from other local trivia night offerings. These events were used to develop strong relationships with participants.
Are you thinking about organizing your trivia program in your library? Here are some tips and tips to help you make your program successful.
Find the right program length
When it comes to structuring your trivia program, you really need to find that sweet spot. Too few rounds can be frustrating, but many rounds are burdensome. Our trivia night ran for two hours, with a “traditional” round of 10 questions each, plus a photo round that the team could work on throughout the evening. We experimented with other options and this setup worked well for both the staff and the patrons.
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Set ground rules early
It is no secret that trivia events can be very competitive, especially if you keep them in places where alcohol is served. A healthy sense of competition creates fun and engaging times, but too much competition makes it difficult to keep the program on track. Some useful basic rules include “limit the trash can,” “talk the group representatives to staff if you have concerns about the answer,” “don’t charge or charge anyone reading the question out loud.” (Yes, we came up with that rule after a memorable, raucous night.)
It features a variety of topics
Unless you’re writing your program on very specific themes like “Marvel Comics” or “’80’s Movies”, you need to incorporate multiple topics and make sure there’s something for everyone. Here are some strategies we found useful:
- Be creative! For example, I learned that there are not many sports buffs among the trivia patrons. So some of the sports-themed topics used were “sports superstition” and “march madness.”
- Incorporate your personality. The tune round is one of my favorite names, consisting of songs from each staff member’s Spotify Top 10 list, and for fun it makes me guess which songs are which.
- Enjoy your customers and get them. We encouraged all teams to submit ideas for future categories. This was hilarious seeing some of the suggestions as it helped us during the planning meeting. I also got a really difficult proposal to turn into a complete 10 question round (think of it as “stock symbols” or “that only the people of Scotland know”), so I gathered these ideas and created a recurring theme called “Nobody, you can’t do the whole round about this.”
Write a strong question
One of the things that made our trivia night so special is that we wrote almost all of our questions. Yes, it was a lot of extra work, but it was a lot of fun and it really separates our program from your average bar trivia. If you want to work harder with your program, here are some tips to write our best questions.
- Include a simple, medium, hard question mix for each round. If there is doubt, make a mistake on a simpler aspect of the spectrum.
- Include contextual clues in your questions so that people have the opportunity to guess the correct answer even if they don’t know the answer completely. For example, “What classical child author was a youth librarian before publishing her first book?” You need to have this knowledge in full, but “This classical child author was a youth librarian before publishing her first book.” Henry Huggins1950. “If you know who wrote it, I’ll give you the opportunity to answer the book. Henry Huggins. (Answer: Beverly Cleary.)
- Our patrons loved the bonus points! See if you can find opportunities to help them improve their score. (Example: “Nirvana released three studio albums in 1994 before Kurt Cobain’s death. Name one of the albums, and for bonus points, all three.” Answer: Bleach, don’t worry about it, inside the uterus))
- Avoid questions whose answer is a specific number or date. If you are writing questions like this, please allow correct answers within a certain range. (Example: “In what year did James Patterson publish? The spider came togetherThe first book of Alex Cross series? Your response will be accepted within 5 years. ” Answer: 1993 (1988 – 1998))
I knew our program was special when I first joined Trivia, and as soon as we entered the brewery our patrons were praised. If you have time to devote yourself to such a program with staff, you will find plenty of opportunities for meaningful patrons and community connections, and a lot of fun along the way! (And if you need extra for your trivia team, hit me!)
You can view the following from the editor desk:
This week we’re highlighting a post that made management editor Vanessa Dias feel a sense of the way. Now, even after five years since it was released, Vanessa is still salty American soil. Read the excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
Illustration: January 2020, USA. The blue ink forms a beautiful hummingbird motif illuminated by a creamy background, a bird-little related to the Aztec mythological sun god Huichanropochtri. The black barbed wire quickly cuts the pattern into a grid that resembles the arrangement of the Talabella tiles, delicate and imposing. The package is eye-catching and ostensibly touched by Mexicans, evoking boundaries and immigrant experiences.
The book tells the story of the owner of a bookstore in Acapulco, Mexico. He is forced to run away from home when the drug cartel kills everyone in his family except for his young son in Kinseáñera. She and the boy become immigrants, head out on a dangerous north journey to the US border, avoiding the cartels and making friends with fellow immigrants along the way. This book is not just about the “it” book of the season, Immigration story. It was treated by Oprah and has been praised by everyone from Salma Hayek to the great Sandra Cisneros, known as “The Great Novel of Las Americas.”
It’s been over five years, but this book is still a source of trouble for my existence.
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