djdanmcdermott
I have been working on a way to do trivia at my shows and wanted to show what I have learned. My goal was to do a trivia game between midnight and 1 am that was fun for the participants but not boring or irritating to the non-participants. Here is what I came up with. It has become a huge hit.
1) Take a slide that is not too busy so it will be easy to read when text is added. (Several are available for your use in my blog--including the one i used in my examples.)
2) Type some trivia questions from Trivial Pursuit cards (or wherever) and make slides using the free VCW VicMan's Photo Editor or your editor of choice.
3) Name the slides with the answer so you don't need an answer key. For example if the first slide has the question "1) What is two plus two?" the slide would be named "01 four.jpg" For the second question "2) Who is buried in Grant's tomb? Complete answer." The slide would be named "02 Former President and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant.jpg"
4) create a directory on your hard drive called trivia and then subdirectories trivia1 trivia2, etc. place ten slides each in these directories.
5) set your VDJ to do a slide show with the first slide in that directory (which should be a slide that says "Trivia coming up soon!!" or whatever. Don't rotate the slides yet.
6) pass out a blank sheet of paper (or preferably a form you make up) and a pen to each table. I usually allow teams of 6 or fewer so the bar isn't giving away too many free drinks. If the bar won't (or can't) give drinks I give away the $1 Wal-Mart DVDs to winning team members.
7) load up some mp3s (NOT videos or the slide show won't work!), set it on autopilot, start your slide show and let it run through the whole thing twice.
8) collect the sheets and make sure you get the pens back. :-) With a smile on my face I say "You are disqualified if I don't get my pen back!!" and make a joke about it. But i do get my pens back, lol.
9) grade and if you have a tie either give them all a drink or have a runoff. usually i just tell the bar to make a dirt cheap set of rail vodka and cranberry "Special Awesome Trivia Shooters" and they are cool with it.
An example of several complete sets of slides I have made and used is available for you at http://warrencountyreport.com/trivia.zip
Note that the slide i used for these (and several other blank slides) is available for free on my blog on this forum. Just right click and save.
This has become a very big hit at all of my shows--nightclub, corporate, weddings, etc. People are very competitive and have a lot of fun doing this. Also, if they are NOT interested, they can ignore it and they still hear music playing. It is a lot better than reading questions into a mic which is not fun for the drunks who aren't interested.
make sure you read the questions and answers at the end so people know what they missed.
also, if you get a really dumb or funny answer you can do a "wrong answer of the night" and give them a free drink too.
any comments or suggestions on improvements would be appreciated.
1) Take a slide that is not too busy so it will be easy to read when text is added. (Several are available for your use in my blog--including the one i used in my examples.)
2) Type some trivia questions from Trivial Pursuit cards (or wherever) and make slides using the free VCW VicMan's Photo Editor or your editor of choice.
3) Name the slides with the answer so you don't need an answer key. For example if the first slide has the question "1) What is two plus two?" the slide would be named "01 four.jpg" For the second question "2) Who is buried in Grant's tomb? Complete answer." The slide would be named "02 Former President and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant.jpg"
4) create a directory on your hard drive called trivia and then subdirectories trivia1 trivia2, etc. place ten slides each in these directories.
5) set your VDJ to do a slide show with the first slide in that directory (which should be a slide that says "Trivia coming up soon!!" or whatever. Don't rotate the slides yet.
6) pass out a blank sheet of paper (or preferably a form you make up) and a pen to each table. I usually allow teams of 6 or fewer so the bar isn't giving away too many free drinks. If the bar won't (or can't) give drinks I give away the $1 Wal-Mart DVDs to winning team members.
7) load up some mp3s (NOT videos or the slide show won't work!), set it on autopilot, start your slide show and let it run through the whole thing twice.
8) collect the sheets and make sure you get the pens back. :-) With a smile on my face I say "You are disqualified if I don't get my pen back!!" and make a joke about it. But i do get my pens back, lol.
9) grade and if you have a tie either give them all a drink or have a runoff. usually i just tell the bar to make a dirt cheap set of rail vodka and cranberry "Special Awesome Trivia Shooters" and they are cool with it.
An example of several complete sets of slides I have made and used is available for you at http://warrencountyreport.com/trivia.zip
Note that the slide i used for these (and several other blank slides) is available for free on my blog on this forum. Just right click and save.
This has become a very big hit at all of my shows--nightclub, corporate, weddings, etc. People are very competitive and have a lot of fun doing this. Also, if they are NOT interested, they can ignore it and they still hear music playing. It is a lot better than reading questions into a mic which is not fun for the drunks who aren't interested.
make sure you read the questions and answers at the end so people know what they missed.
also, if you get a really dumb or funny answer you can do a "wrong answer of the night" and give them a free drink too.
any comments or suggestions on improvements would be appreciated.
Posted Wed 14 Dec 05 @ 12:48 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
NIICE ;)
What a creative use ot the VDJ slideshow.... Amazing :)
Great great idea, and thanks for sharing...
What a creative use ot the VDJ slideshow.... Amazing :)
Great great idea, and thanks for sharing...
Posted Wed 14 Dec 05 @ 2:56 pm
djdanmcdermott
no problem. i am happy to do so. lord knows i have gotten a TON of help from you guys, esp cyder.
i have an online newspaper site http://warrencountyreport.com and i am thinking of setting up a special area where djs from here can register (for free of course) and upload trivia sets to save us all some work. i would require a registration to keep our customers from seeing the answers. :-) i would have to figure out the best way to do that. hmmm...
prob would be better to have it on here though. for pro level users and up, or anything but the general public. and we should agree on a common format. i do 10 questions which takes 11 minutes to run through twice at 30 sec per slide (including opener.) By the time you explain what is going on and read the answers at the end you are talking 15 minutes minimum. so i like 10 questions. and make sure you number them just like i did so they run in order on the slideshow.
another way would be to have 20 questions for 30 seconds each and run through one time. call it speed trivia. less chance of a tie with more questions and makes it harder for people to cheat with cell phones. but that takes longer to make the set of slides which you can really only use one time at the same club.
i have an online newspaper site http://warrencountyreport.com and i am thinking of setting up a special area where djs from here can register (for free of course) and upload trivia sets to save us all some work. i would require a registration to keep our customers from seeing the answers. :-) i would have to figure out the best way to do that. hmmm...
prob would be better to have it on here though. for pro level users and up, or anything but the general public. and we should agree on a common format. i do 10 questions which takes 11 minutes to run through twice at 30 sec per slide (including opener.) By the time you explain what is going on and read the answers at the end you are talking 15 minutes minimum. so i like 10 questions. and make sure you number them just like i did so they run in order on the slideshow.
another way would be to have 20 questions for 30 seconds each and run through one time. call it speed trivia. less chance of a tie with more questions and makes it harder for people to cheat with cell phones. but that takes longer to make the set of slides which you can really only use one time at the same club.
Posted Wed 14 Dec 05 @ 6:39 pm
Rune (DJ-In-Norway)
good idea....
will ask webmaster for slideshow and quiz uploads....
will ask webmaster for slideshow and quiz uploads....
Posted Wed 14 Dec 05 @ 10:28 pm
acw_dj
djdanmcdermott,
It's a creative show to keep people participating... Cool !
It's a creative show to keep people participating... Cool !
Posted Thu 15 Dec 05 @ 2:31 am
chabonk
It's sort of like those Q&A's that appear before movie trailers at the theatre. Great idea! I'm going to add this to my arsenal.
Posted Thu 15 Dec 05 @ 5:17 am