Whether you’re hosting a virtual pub quiz, running team building at work, or organising a charity fundraiser from your living room, there’s a good chance you’re making some classic blunders that are turning your brilliant quiz idea into a bit of a nightmare.
Don’t worry though, we’ve all been there. Even the most seasoned quiz masters have fallen into these traps.
The good news? Most of these mistakes are dead easy to fix once you know what to look out for.
So grab a cuppa and let’s dive into the seven most common cock-ups that are sabotaging your online quiz events, and more importantly, how to sort them out.
Mistake 1 – Asking Way Too Many Questions (AKA The Marathon Nobody Asked For)
Picture this: you’re hosting a Friday night quiz and decide that 50 questions will really give people their money’s worth.
Fast forward two hours, and half your participants have mysteriously “lost connection” whilst the remaining brave souls look like they’ve been through emotional warfare.
Here’s the brutal truth: nobody wants to sit through War and Peace when they signed up for a quick pint and a laugh.
The Fix: Keep it snappy. For most interactive quiz events, 15-25 questions is the sweet spot. Pub quizzes can stretch to 30 if you’re doing themed rounds, but charity events should stay closer to 20 to keep energy high. Corporate team building? Stick to 15-20 unless you fancy explaining to HR why half the team has switched off.
The key is knowing your audience and occasion. A quick lunchtime quiz at work should be completely different from your mate’s birthday quiz marathon.
Mistake 2 – Writing Questions That Would Confuse Einstein
Nothing kills quiz momentum like questions that require a PhD in Advanced Confusion Studies to understand.
We’ve all seen them, those rambling, multi-part questions that somehow manage to ask about three different things whilst providing no clear path to an answer.
“In the 1987 film directed by the person who also wrote the screenplay for the movie that featured the actor who later appeared in the sequel to the film about the robot from the future, what colour was the car?”
Just no.
The Fix: One question, one concept. Keep your language simple and direct. If you’re writing a question about geography, ask about geography. Don’t throw in random historical facts and expect people to follow your train of thought.
Test your questions on someone who isn’t living inside your brain. If they need to read it twice, rewrite it.
Mistake 3 – Turning Your Quiz Into a Technical Disaster
Nothing says “professional quiz night” quite like spending 20 minutes trying to figure out why the audio isn’t working, why Sandra can’t see the questions, and why Dave’s answers keep disappearing into the digital ether.
Technical problems don’t just frustrate participants, they completely derail the flow and energy of your event.
One minute everyone’s having a laugh about 80s music, the next minute you’re troubleshooting like you’re trying to land a space shuttle.
The Fix: Test everything beforehand. Seriously, everything. Test your internet connection, your quiz platform, your backup plans, and your backup’s backup plans.
For online quiz events, make sure you’ve got a simple way for people to join (nobody wants to download seven different apps), and always have a tech-savvy co-host who can handle problems while you keep the show rolling.
Consider using platforms specifically designed for interactive quizzes like KwizzBit rather than trying to cobble something together with general video calling software.
Mistake 4 – Ignoring Different Playing Fields
Here’s a classic mistake: assuming everyone’s playing on a level playing field. Some people are squinting at their phones while walking the dog, others have set up a proper quiz war room with multiple screens, and poor Janet is trying to participate whilst making dinner for three kids.
When you don’t account for these differences, you end up with quiz questions that work brilliantly on a laptop but are completely impossible to read on a phone, or visual rounds that are stunning in high definition but look like abstract art on smaller screens.
The Fix: Design for the lowest common denominator, mobile phones. If your questions work perfectly on a small screen, they’ll work everywhere else too.
Keep visual elements simple and bold. Text should be large enough to read without squinting, and images should be clear even when viewed on a tiny screen in questionable lighting.
Mistake 5 – Providing Feedback That’s About as Helpful as a Chocolate Teapot
“Wrong answer.”
“Incorrect.”
“Nope.”
Brilliant feedback there, really helping people learn and engage with your quiz. Nothing says “quality quiz experience” quite like being told you’re wrong with all the warmth of a parking ticket.
This is particularly painful in corporate training quizzes or educational charity events where people actually want to learn something, but it’s equally frustrating in social settings where people want to understand why their perfectly logical answer was apparently mental.
The Fix: Explain your answers. When someone gets something wrong, tell them what the right answer is and why. Even better, add a bit of context or an interesting fact.
Instead of “Wrong,” try “Not quite! The answer is Mars, which is actually red because of iron oxide (basically rust) on its surface.” Now people have learned something and feel clever, rather than just feeling thick.
Mistake 6 – Making Answer Options That Would Confuse a Sphinx
Multiple choice questions should make life easier, not harder. Yet somehow, quiz creators manage to turn simple questions into cognitive assault courses.
You know the ones: questions with six possible answers where three of them are basically the same thing worded differently, two are completely irrelevant, and one is technically correct but requires knowledge of obscure trivia to distinguish from the others.
“What year did World War II end?”
A) 1945
B) 1944
C) 1946
D) The year before 1946
E) Two years after 1943
F) The same year the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan
Just give people A, B, and C and call it a day.
The Fix: Stick to 3-4 clear, distinct answer options. Make sure each option is genuinely different and plausible. If you’re writing a question about British history, don’t include “Purple elephant” as an option unless you’re specifically going for comedy gold.
Test your multiple choice questions by covering up the correct answer and seeing if the other options could reasonably be correct. If they couldn’t, rewrite them.
Mistake 7 – Completely Ignoring Your Audience (The Cardinal Sin)
This is the big one. Creating a quiz that’s perfect for you and your mates, but completely wrong for the people who’ll actually be playing it.
Running a charity quiz for families?
Probably best to skip the detailed questions about 1990s indie bands that only three people will get.
Hosting a corporate team building event?
Maybe don’t ask about reality TV drama that’ll have half the room completely lost.
The most successful interactive quiz events feel like they were designed specifically for the people playing them, not like generic questions grabbed from the internet.
The Fix: Know your audience and design accordingly. For family charity events, include questions that different age groups can contribute to. For pub quizzes, balance difficult questions with easier ones that keep everyone engaged. For corporate events, focus on general knowledge that won’t exclude anyone.
Consider having different difficulty levels or ensuring each round has a mix that gives everyone a chance to shine. The goal is for people to leave feeling clever and entertained, not excluded and frustrated.
The Bottom Line: Keep It Human
At the end of the day, the best online quiz events succeed because they remember that there are real people on the other side of those screens. People who want to have fun, learn something interesting, and feel included in the experience.
Whether you’re using a sophisticated online quiz maker or just winging it with basic tools, avoiding these seven mistakes will dramatically improve your quiz events. Test everything, keep questions clear and fair, provide helpful feedback, and always design with your specific audience in mind.
Most importantly, remember that technology should enhance the human connection, not replace it. The best quiz nights, online or offline, are the ones where people finish the evening having learned something new, had a proper laugh, and felt like they were part of something enjoyable.
Now stop reading about quizzes and go create one that doesn’t make these mistakes. Your participants will thank you for it.
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