You might think it's never easy to run a quiz straight off the bat....

Once you're a couple of rounds in you'll be away. And by the second week you'll feel like you've been doing it for years! Here are some helpful tips from our experienced crew:

• A microphone is a quizmaster's best friend. No need to lose that voice over trivial things!
• Teams are not expecting you to be John Hawkesby or Eddie Maguire. Just be organised, friendly and inject a bit of humour and you'll be well-received. Quiz humour develops from the questions, make sure you mention silly answers - and bear in mind that it's usually those teams that expect you to give them a hard time!
• Be fair on everyone, if it's an even playing field, you will make more friends than enemies. If team's perceive you are giving another an unfair advantage by helping them or dropping hints, they will feel somewhat aggrieved. Having said that, if a team is always struggling, and likely to be last, then I usually do what I can to encourage them...
• If someone disputes an answer, remind them the questions are twice-verified, more often than not we're right and they're wrong! And rather than argue, if you are in any doubt, text 0274 850 375 and receive an instant reply with clarification to your question.
• Try and convince a team to stay even if they're intending to only be there for a short time. It's simple to say "have a go, it's free", and often they will join in, and still be there at the end of the night.
• Encourage teams to make a note of the question in the margin if they don't know the answer. This way, they can quickly refer back to it at a moment's notice, not bothering you with "What was no 4 again?" etc etc.
• Cheating does happen, but very rarely. Teams cheat by using modern technology, ie laptops and cellphones, or swapping answers with each other. You can usually tell when it's happening - I usually put teams on notice to dob each other in!
• Encourage teams not to call out answers, remind them before you start that it's a written quiz. Despite this, expect to hear someone say an answer far too loudly when you ask the first question!
• A quick quiz is a good quiz. Aim to have everything done and dusted in 2.5 hours. If you allow 15 minutes per round you'll find this works out well.
• Can't get the multimedia scoreboard to work? Or unsure about the exact sequence to run the quiz? Follow these instructions:

       How to use our multimedia scoreboard:

       How to run the multimedia quiz:

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