How Does a Corporate Team Building Company Create a Public Trivia Night About NYC?
Next week, we will be holding our 2nd SOLD OUT “Why We Love NYC” trivia night at The Bell House with host Pat Kiernan, which we added after our original event in January sold out as well.
Ever since joining TrivWorks last year as a “Special Host,” Pat and I have been looking into potential underserved markets in the area of live trivia outside of the customized employee team building activities and corporate entertainment events which our company specializes in. We have been so delighted with the response that these special public events have received, and are thrilled to have found a first-rate venue partner, as well as a truly wonderful niche audience seeking high-quality trivia nights featuring smart questions, amazing prizes, and emceed by a real, bona fide TV game show host.
That said, however, a high-end trivia night open to the public is not the same thing as a corporate team building activity, customized for a specific group.
For starters, not everyone at a public event knows each other like they do for private events – with 300 trivia lovers from all walks of life in attendance, how can we possibly ask questions which will be both appropriate and meaningful to such a disparate audience?
The answer here is to ask as broad a range of questions as possible. The overall theme for this Monday’s event is New York City; with a presumed audience of fellow New Yorkers who live, work and play in the Greatest City on Earth, we will ask questions which smart, news/pop-culture-savvy New Yorkers who would want to attend an event like this would have a reasonable expectation of knowing the answers to. Instead of asking about a specific company information, individuals etc. like we would at a private customized trivia party, the common denominator here is NYC itself: the places, events, people, media, “insider” stuff that only we New Yorkers know, etc. In so doing, we can ensure that a large number of people who have little in common besides living in Gotham can actually have a fair shot at answering questions which truly are customized just for them.
Speaking of the number of attendees, 300 people is quite a lot isn’t it? The key to our corporate events is in making sure that everyone in the room participates; yet with 300 people, how does the entire room get to be involved?
The solution here is in creating as even a playing field as possible. As described in a previous post about the rules for our large-scale public trivia events, the entire audience is broken down into teams of no greater than 8 people. In addition to making for a more fair competition, by limiting the number of people on each team we effectively allow for everyone on the team to have a voice; if teams of 10, 12 or more people were competing, the odds are good that at least 1 person in every team wouldn’t feel that they were participating, and that’s not the kind of inclusive, engaging environment we’re looking to create here.
We have also devised a system by which everyone in the room has an opportunity to participate in special 1 on 1 trivia contests onstage with Pat, held in between rounds while we are grading answer sheets. Upon arrival, everyone will receive 1 raffle ticket at the box office, and will be entered in to a raffle to be selected to participate in the onstage “mini games” throughout the event. This way, all 300 attendees will have an equal chance of participating in these special, individualized trivia contests, and of winning some outstanding prizes by demonstrating personal knowledge of New York City.
We ultimately aim to have as fun, high-energy and memorably an event as we did last month – hope to see you there!
As mentioned, Monday’s event is indeed already sold out; however, if you would like to be added to our special Email list to be alerted FIRST about our next trivia event at The Bell House hosted by Pat Kiernan, please send me an Email at david@trivworks.com or write to us on Twitter @TrivWorks.