Trivia Night
For many clubs, the annual trivia night is a staple of their fundraising year. It can raise anywhere from $2,000 -$15,000.
Trivia nights can be as creative as your club would like it to be. You could include a theme, strictly general knowledge, mostly music or anywhere in between. Typically there are 5-10 rounds of trivia questions where teams compete for points and the team with the highest points at the end of the rounds wins a prize or “bragging rights”.
The rounds of questions are usually interspersed with other mini-comps and fundraising activities like dance offs, silent auctions and raffles.
Trivia Nights are broadly appealing as people can have a great night without spending a huge amount of money. It is also a great opportunity to socialise with their fellow club members and friends while proving their trivia knowledge!
There is the opportunity to raise significant funds with ticket sales as well as and if using the your venue costs can be kept minimal.
Why a Trivia Night?
A trivia night is an great opportunity for your club and community to come together for a night of competitive fun. It can also be easily held in conjunction with other fundraising ideas such as raffles and auctions.
It is important to be aware that this fundraiser does call on your club community to donate and doesn’t give an great opportunity for fundraising dollars to be made from external sources. This can be lessened by allowing your members to bring friends to the night.
When should I hold this fundraiser?
A trivia night can be held at anytime during the year and could be written in the calendar as one of the major, yearly social events or an ongoing monthly event at the club.
Key Activities
These are the tasks you will need to consider assign to volunteers at our club:
Before the Day
- Decide a date for the trivia night fundraiser.
- Promote the fundraiser.
- Organise the venue, tables and chairs.
- Organise volunteers to help and an MC.
- Come up with or source trivia questions.
- Organise any food and beverages that will be for sale.
- Organise any raffles, activities, competitions or auctions that might run at the same time.
- Sell tickets.
On the Day
- Ensure the room, tables and chairs are set up and ready to go.
- Ensure food and beverages are ready to sell or serve.
- Ensure questions, music and all activities are ready for the event.
- Brief volunteers of their roles.
- Enjoy the night!
- Monitor the event.
- Take lots of photos.
After the day
- Publicly thank everyone involved
- Announce the amount of money raised in club newsletters, on social media, website and around the club.
Who can help?
It is important to engage your members to help in the running of your fundraiser.
For an trivia night you could approach them to help:
- Promote and sell the tickets
- Help source prizes
- Come up with activities, games and competitions to play in between each round of questions
- Help logistically on the day
You could also approach current club Sponsors for any prizes you plan to use.
Recruiting your people
It is important to create a culture of volunteering at your club to help not only with fundraising but also across the day to day running of your club. For more on how to create this at your club, click here.
Using technology to making it easier
You may like to consider using technology to reduce the workload on your volunteers and increase your fundraising dollars. For an event like this, you may like to sell tickets using a platform like TryBooking.
TryBooking lets you sell tickets, take payments and donations for events online.
This takes care of a great deal of the work that is usually left to volunteers and automates the ticket selling process.
You can set up and customise your own event page and a unique URL in minutes. This lets you easily share the event online and engage members and supporters. Your club may also like to use social media, email newsletters and your club website to promote the event.
Financial Considerations
Costs include the hire of a suitable venue if your club venue is not big enough. Tables and chairs may need to be hired as well as some minor decorations to brighten the venue.
Your club might like to consider outsourcing the trivia questions and MC duties to a professional if your club doesn’t have anyone suitable. The MC or “Trivia Master” will also require a mic and sound equipment which is usually provided when hired from a professional trivia company.
Prizes for raffles as well as auction items need to be considered. It is a great idea to try to source these from sponsors and ask members to help source the from businesses in the community.
These donations are often in exchange for signage and promotion on the night. The key is not to leave this to the last minute and try to organise prizes early to avoid added pressure.
The most successful trivia nights often have BYO options for food and drink and low ticket prices. Even if your ticket price is set at $20, if 200 people attend that’s already $4,000 (less set up costs). This is without taking into account the many other fundraising activities that can be held on the night.
Whatever method is used, clubs should seek to pre-sell tickets and discourage door sales. Pre-selling tickets gets money in the kitty to cover costs and ensures catering is accurate.
The more help your club can get from its volunteers and sponsors when organising an event the greater the return but it is important not to compromise on quality otherwise no one will pay money to attend in following years.
Promotion
Club trivia nights are best promoted in-house using:
- Club website
- Newsletter
- Noticeboard
- Signs around the club (especially the canteen)
- Blackboards
- Club Facebook and Twitter.
It is a great idea to encourage your club community to bring their friends for a fun night! The more people that attend the greater the opportunity to raise even more fundraising dollars for your club.
Communication considerations
As a trivia night may also double as a social event at your club, you can use social media to build excitement. You can use social media to sell tickets and countdown to the day. You can also live stream parts of the event on the day so that those in your community that can’t attend can still be part of the event.
Social, Moral and Ethical Considerations
Supply of Alcohol
As this event includes alcohol it is important to consider whether there will be limits or restrictions set in advance. Clubs need to consider how they will manage the risks of binge drinking as well as the Responsible Service of Alcohol.
What can go wrong? (Risk Management)
Financial Risks
There are obvious financial risks if enough tickets aren’t sold and set up costs more than is made.
Participant Safety
The health and wellbeing of those who attend your event should be a focus at all times. It is important that your club takes time to consider all possible risks and how to minimise these.
Licenses and Permits
Food handling and service laws need to be considered. Liquor licencing and RSA requirements for serving drinks also need to be adhered to. If in doubt, check with the liquor licensing and food safety authority in your state or territory.
Clubs need to check with their state or territory regulatory body to make sure they have all the required permissions to run a trivia night.
It is also important to contact your insurance company to ensure your public liability insurance policies cover the event.
Additional Factors to consider
Allergies
If catering food ensure you cater for those with allergies and these are clearly labeled. Allergies can be life threatening and need to be considered seriously.
Additional Revenue Opportunities
There are many ways to raise additional funds at a trivia night:
- Silent auction
- Raffles
- Auctions
- Sponsorship
- Club merchandise sales
- Club memberships
Be creative in your fundraising. One club we know of allowed a sports retailer to perform a fashion parade of their apparel and the retailer was happy to pay big bucks for the privilege.
Keep in mind, the better the quality of the prizes and auction items the more likely the club is to raise significant funds. And keep in mind your audience, an autographed Aussie Rules book is unlikely to sell at a NSW soccer club’s trivia night but vouchers for spa treatments and massages sell everywhere.
Suppliers/Links
Any specific suppliers or links for this particular fundraiser. Could be used for 3rd party advertising in the future.
Disclaimer
This procedure should be treated as a guide only. Your club should seek advice specific to the needs of your club and event. Seek further details from authorities and service providers; especially in regards to insurance, licences, permits, spectator and participant safety.
