Have you ever tried your hand at hosting a big trivia bash? If you have, you know it’s not as easy as it looks. There are a lot of features to keep in mind, including writing good questions, keeping track of everyone’s score (esp. if it’s a large group of people), and hosting in a fun manner (or finding a good host) to engage the crowd as much as possible.
Whether you’re having a quaint night with friends, coming up with trivia ideas for a wedding or baby shower, or a huge party, or a work event, planning a trivia night can be stressful. If you’d prefer not to go through it alone, consider one of the trivia rental services below. These services provide you with everything you need so you can banish your worry and just have fun.
There are plenty of reasons why you might opt for hiring a trivia expert for your next event. Perhaps you’re looking to bond with your coworkers through fun, interactive game play. Or maybe you run a business and you’re looking to bring in customers and boost sales on a slow night by hosting a trivia game.
Once you get the ball rolling with a trivia rental service, you might feel compelled to create a long-term partnership and make your trivia night a monthly or weekly endeavor. Alternatively, you could use the rental service as a jumping-off point to learn how to host an event like this on your own.
For the sake of brevity, we’ve only included trivia rental services that are available in the U.S. and Canada. Some of these services are only available in a certain city, while others can be hired across the two countries.
Read through our list of the best trivia rental services to find out which best meets your needs below.
Interactive Entertainment Group
Interactive Entertainment Group is a major U.S. event production company that specializes in fun corporate parties. They’ve got a ton of trivia event options—tune trivia, spooky trivia, “Xtreme” trivia, and even customizable trivia games. Though their services are available across the U.S., you can check their website for their list of most-frequented cities and states in the country to learn more about their options for your specific area.
Some are complete with a host who runs the show via Zoom, while others require Interactive Entertainment Group’s trained staff to join your group in person.
The staff will come equipped with everything your trivia event could possibly need. In addition to trivia software, they can bring up to 600 individual wireless keypad remotes from which players can answer questions. In other words, if you’ve got a huge group, IEG is a great option for you. The number of keypads available fluctuates from package to package, so be sure to look carefully when browsing their catalog.
To play IEG’s virtual trivia games, players can use their smartphones or another smart device of choice to answer questions. Plus, these virtual activities have earned their social distancing stamp of approval, making one of them the perfect choice for your COVID-safe workplace.
Pub Trivia USA
If you’re a pub or restaurant owner looking to liven up your business, look no further than Pub Trivia USA. Their expert hosts and competitive gameplay are sure to bring eager folks in to play and keep spirits high on even the dreariest weekday.
Pub Trivia USA is based in Illinois, but they’re available to host across the entire country. While they specialize in bar or pub trivia nights, they’re ready to help out at your onetime corporate event, too. And if you’re still social distancing, no worries—they’ve got virtual trivia options, too.
The gameplay methods that Pub Trivia USA follows are a little unconventional, so read their instructions on their website carefully before committing. To overview, each game contains two halves with three rounds of three questions each. Teams can be big or small, though the website states “the bigger, the better.”
Questions are assigned point values for difficulty, and each team cannot choose questions of the same point value during the same round. Also, there’s a wager involved before the final question. Did we lose you yet?
Even if gameplay may be a little more involved than your average bar trivia game, Pub Trivia USA’s talented hosts will guide you and your customers through a seamless trivia night.
Quizrunners
Are quality trivia questions your number one priority? Consider Quizrunners, whose trivia writing team spans four generations. While they don’t provide a host, Quizrunners gives you everything else you could possibly need to host your trivia night, and they do so in an incredibly affordable fashion.
Perhaps best of all, they’ve got a trivia subscription service that sends business owners new questions via email once a week. In other words, if your trivia night is recurring, then Quizrunners is an excellent option for you.
This subscription is $59 a month, and you get your first week completely free. It includes over 70 questions from seven different categories in PowerPoint, Word, and PDF forms. Plus, they send you an automated digital scoreboard so you can keep track of the winners for all to see on a large screen.
Quizrunners’s digital format means you can order their trivia to serve you virtually anywhere. If you’ve got a host in-house who’s ready to entertain, one of their trivia packages ought to serve you well.
Quiz Coconut
What if you want to host a trivia night, but are worried about differences between players’ ages and knowledge bases? Quiz Coconut is a trivia event company that strives for inclusivity. They make sure to opt for categories and questions that won’t exclude players of certain generations or backgrounds.
Quiz Coconut is based in Canada but also hosts plenty of events in the U.S. They’ve been hired to host corporate trivia games, either in-person or online, for high-profile clients including Coca-Cola, Google, and J.P. Morgan.
While their trivia games are engineered with groups as big as 500 people in mind, they can also be modified to serve a crowd of only 10. They make sure to pepper in fun challenges and bonuses to keep gameplay from dragging on. Especially in a virtual format, which they conduct over Zoom, Quiz Coconut strives to engage every player and keep the trivia light, entertaining, and fun.
These games are meant to foster teamwork and socialization amongst individuals who know each other, so they’re more ideal for a special, one-time event or party as opposed to a weekly bar trivia night. That being said, nothing’s impossible, so if you’re interested in something different, it’s worth shooting Quiz Coconut an email.
King Trivia
King Trivia is one of the U.S.’s foremost trivia event companies. Their Quizmasters are ready, willing, and able to run your trivia night smoothly, and their writers make sure to feature a variety of categories for each game. Scores aren’t tallied until the end of each game, making for a suspenseful and excitement-filled night.
King Trivia centers itself on bar trivia—its website boasts that its games have spilled over five million beers—so they won’t be of use if you don’t want your event to be heavy on the booze. They’re an extremely experienced company, and ideal to consult when looking to establish a trivia night at your own local bar or pub.
And if your customers are super serious about trivia, encourage them to join King Trivia’s master league. It’s made up of their top trivia teams in the country. Stats are taken into account for every single trivia night they host and are reflected on an online leaderboard. And if a player wants to switch teams for their next game, they are welcome to do so—and, likewise, begin earning points under a new team name on the leaderboard.
St. Louis Trivia Guy
If you find yourself in the Gateway City, reach out to the St. Louis Trivia Guy for your event. Yes, this is only an option for you in St. Louis, Missouri—and as a resident myself, I might be biased—but the STL Trivia Guy knows his stuff, so consider him if you’re ever in the city. He’s got 12 years of experience under his belt and plenty of specific trivia categories to choose from.
Got a specific category in mind? Run it by the Trivia Guy and he’ll write you ten questions for the category. Pre-made theme options include Ads and Logos, Sayings, Slogans, and Quotes, Tabloid Gossip, and more.
The STL Trivia Guy offers several different packages based on the needs of your party. You can choose a more streamlined, basic one, or add extras, such as a PowerPoint question slideshow, an online score sheet, or even a professional emcee with audio equipment. These bonuses allow you to plan your event, so it aligns with your specific vision.
His package prices range from $125 to $495 depending on the perks you’re looking for. There’s also a discounted rate for trivia events done at retirement homes, so keep that in mind if you’re someone who works with seniors.
Geeks Who Drink
Geeks Who Drink is an excellent choice for comprehensive trivia game play—each game consists of seven rounds of eight questions each. They cover a wide variety of categories and include video and audio-specific rounds, too. No need to find a host—their “Quizmaster” will have you covered and keep customers coming back week after week.
According to their website, you don’t actually need to be a geek or a drinker to enjoy one of Geeks Who Drink’s private events. They serve over 1000 corporate clients, including big names like Amazon, Microsoft, American Airlines, and Whole Foods. However, that shouldn’t discourage smaller businesses from pursuing an event held by Geeks Who Drink! Whether your business is big or small, they know their trivia stuff.
Speaking of small businesses, Geeks Who Drink has premade events designed specifically for pubs or casual bars in mind. They’ve even got a “Small Batch Trivia” option for slower gameplay so customers can enjoy their trivia in a more leisurely fashion.
DJ Trivia
Yet another trivia expert is DJ Trivia. They’re available across the United States and give you everything you need to throw a hopping trivia night. The name sends it all—they send along an experienced trivia DJ (aka a host equipped with a mic) to read questions and engage the crowd.
DJ Trivia isn’t specifically geared towards bars. In fact, they specify that their questions are made for the whole family, so if your establishment lets in kids, let them in on the fun!
Like a few of the other trivia companies we’ve mentioned, they’ve got a winners’ league so successful players can boast their expertise and newbies can work their way up. They also sell merch, so have at their funny, themed shirts to increase interest in your trivia night even more.
One potential caveat—you’ve got to have TV screens available on which to show the questions, so a trivia game on the night of a big game might not go over so well. If you aren’t looking for a weekly trivia night, they’ll also gladly host your next private event. And if trivia isn’t what you need, or you’ve got an older crowd, DJ Bingo is also an option.
Plus, if you opt to host any day between Sunday and Thursday, they’ve got a bonus question for your customers that’ll earn them 20 to 40 extra points! These questions are written with great attention to detail and are written in a fun and witty manner. That being said, they can be difficult to decipher unless you’re really familiar with their subject matter, which changes daily. These bonus questions are a nice touch to increase competition and boost morale amongst players.
If you’re a trivia buff yourself, DJ Trivia will take your question suggestions. Just visit their website to submit your question of choice. Who knows—maybe it’ll show up during your next trivia night!
Conclusion
We hope our recommendations have given you plenty of ideas for where to turn when you throw your next trivia night. Whether you’re on the corporate side of things or you’re trying to make moves at the local level, there’s an event provider on this list for you.
Have another favorite trivia rental service we missed? Or have you had a notable experience working with any of the aforementioned companies? Feel free to sound off in the comments!
Leave a Reply