Music, questions and a leaderboard in one night. Learn how the DJ trivia format is structured, what venues pay for it, and how to run it on your own gear.
DJ trivia is a named night format, not a piece of equipment. The shape is always roughly the same: a person on a microphone who is also playing music, a quiz that runs in rounds between tracks, a screen showing scores, and a prize at the end. It sits between a straight pub quiz and a party, and venues book it because it fills a weeknight without turning into a club night.
For a working DJ it is one of the few genuine ways to raise your rate. A four hour party set is priced against every other DJ in town. A quiz night with music is a different product with a different comparison set, and it is bookable on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when nobody is hiring a party DJ at all. It also fills your calendar in the weeks between wedding season.
This page is about the format and the business around it. If you want the product detail instead, our trivia software for DJs page covers the app itself: the booth workflow, the display window, branding and how the buzzers behave. Read that one when you are deciding what to run the night on.
Built for hosts and venues who need to look professional from day one.
Name That Tune questions sit inside the same game as general knowledge, so the night moves between listening and answering without a hard stop. Family Feud, Jeopardy and Music Bingo are on Hospitality Group.
Quiz nights are booked on different days and different budgets than party sets. The same diary can carry both without them competing.
A venue that books you every Wednesday is worth more over a year than three Saturdays. The quiz format is what makes a weeknight residency saleable.
You decide how many rounds run and how long questions stay open, so the quiz stretches or shortens around the room and the bar takings.
Build a game once and run it at four different bars in the same week. The audiences do not overlap, so the content does not need to.
A named round is something a drinks rep or the venue itself can sponsor, which is easier to sell when the round title is on a big screen all night.
Leagues and seasons on Trivia Pro track standings week to week, which gives the venue a retention story rather than a one-off event.
The pitch to a venue is simple: I bring the crowd back on your worst night.
A quiz segment gives a party a middle section, so the night is not four hours of dancing.
Organisers want structure, and a quiz gives a fundraiser a running order that sells tickets.
Once you hold four nights a week, the only way to grow is someone else running one of them.
A workable running order is three or four rounds inside two hours, with music playing in every gap. Open with fifteen minutes of tracks while teams arrive and register, then run a general knowledge round to settle the room. Put your music round second, when everyone is present and nobody has drifted yet.
Take a proper break in the middle. Fifteen minutes of music with the scores left on screen is when the bar makes its money, and the venue notices that. Then run a picture round, and finish with a wager round so a team that fell behind can still win. Announce the winner while a track is already playing, and roll straight into the rest of the night.
Keep the microphone work short. The screen carries the questions and the scores, so your job is energy, timing and the joke between rounds. DJs who over-explain lose the room faster than DJs who say too little.
Do not price the quiz as a discount on your DJ rate. It is extra work: you build the game, you host it, and you carry the risk of the night landing. Treat it as either a separate booking with its own fee or an add-on line on top of the set fee, and say which one you are quoting.
To find a number, ring two local trivia companies as though you were a venue and ask what they charge per night. That is the price your prospect is comparing you to, and it is the only figure worth anchoring on. Rates vary far too much by country and city for anyone to quote you a useful average.
Sell the residency, not the night. A venue that commits to twelve weeks is worth a slightly lower per-night fee, because you can plan around it and because a quiz only builds an audience by repeating. Put the review point in writing at week eight so the conversation about renewing is scheduled rather than awkward.
Music is the reason a venue books a DJ for their quiz rather than a quizmaster with a laptop. Name That Tune questions let you use that advantage inside the game instead of only between rounds, and Music Bingo adds a whole round of it on the Hospitality Group plan. These are the rounds regulars remember.
Licensing is your responsibility, not the software vendor. Quizado does not provide, include or arrange a music licence. What you need depends on your country, the venue and whether the event is public or private, and in many places the venue already holds the relevant licence for playing recorded music. Confirm that with the venue in writing before you take a booking.
Practically, keep music rounds to eight questions or fewer. Clips are fun but they take real time, and a twenty-question music round is where a two hour night quietly becomes a three hour one.
The app side of the night: booth workflow, display window and buzzers.
How the quiz itself is built, round type by round type.
What the host console does while you keep the music running.
Turning one weeknight residency into a booked diary of venues.
The plans in full, including which one carries Music Bingo.
Put it on the laptop already in your van and build a test game.
Download Quizado free and host your first trivia night tonight!
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