The Importance Of Question Number 1

Where To Start?

The opening question on a quiz can do a lot of things. You can catch the attention of your audience or you can lose their interest very quickly.

I’m sure at some point, all quiz presenters have gone round offering pens and quiz sheets out and occasionally there are customers who will decline the offer to play.

Your opening quiz question might just catch their attention. They may just chance their minds and decide to give this a go. They quite often head straight over and say “OK give us a quiz sheet then”. The group that were all set to leave, stay for the rest of the night.

Topical

The opening question of a quiz should be fairly easy. And topical. Something that has been in the news, something relating to an ongoing event. The rest of your quiz can be copied straight out of a 10 year old quiz book, but by opening with a topical question will give the impression that you have sat down this afternoon and compiled this quiz yourself.

Depending on the format of your quiz, the first question could also be something that the teams can work on throughout the whole round. But always something topical and relevant.

Question Positioning

So as well as crafting good quiz questions, putting thought into where the questions should go within the rounds can be equally important. Again a lot depends on the venue and the audience, but generally if you open with a difficult round, you may lose customers.