Hosting a trivia game is a fun and easy thing to do. Whether it's for a party, a community or user group, or a family get-together, there are many options to choose from when hosting a trivia game.
I recently hosted a trivia game for a neighborhood group, and I wanted to share the templates and the process I used so other people can benefit. Although there are many software options out there for running trivia games, this solution just uses Google applications and is free.
Hardware I used:
A laptop to present 3 things: the questions (in a Google Preso), the questions with answers (in a different Google Preso), and the live scoreboard (a webpage).
A TV or Projector to display so your crowd can see it. I connected my laptop via hdmi to a TV on a stand, but you can use Chromecast or something similar to cast your screen
A microphone and speaker system (optional)
Another device (laptop/phone/table) to connect to the speaker system to play music while people answer questions.
Another laptop to handle scoring. This is optional; you can do everything with one device, but I found it much easier for this to be a two person job: the host reads the questions and runs the music, and the helper collects the score sheets and enters scores.
Software I used:
Google Sheets
Google Preso
Google Appscript
Game Format:
3 rounds of 10 questions each round, with a final question and an optional tie breaker. I gave teams 1 minute to answer each question, so the whole game was done in about 40 minutes.
Step by Step setup:
All the templates are in this Google Drive folder. Create your own folder in your drive.google.com account and save copies of these to that folder.
Create the questions. I used gemini.google.com to create the questions, and then did some light editing.Â
Make a copy of the sheet "Trivia Scoring {TEMPLATE}" and name it "Trivia Scoring". This is the sheet your scorer will use to keep track of team names and team scores. This is also the sheet that the live scoreboard reads from. You will NOT display this sheet to the audience.
Find the tab named "Round 1". Put your questions in row 2 and answers in row 3. Your scorer will fill in a Y or N for each question for each team after each round. Do the same thing for the tabs "Round 2", "Round 3" and "Final"
Make a copy of the preso "Trivia Presentation {TEMPLATE}" and name it "Trivia Presentation". Edit it, entering all of the category names and each of the 10 questions per category. Do NOT put answers in this preso.