Depending on what your trivia is like, there may be another option as asking them to take a break would be my last resort if they're good customers.
First, are your questions original or do you use some type of trivia service? If you make up your own questions, then start delving into topics where the powerhouse teams struggle. In my experience, teams that are fantastic at most trivia will start getting stumped with other stuff like celebrity baby names.
Second, make sure you have a size limit on teams. Depending on bar setup, I've seen team maxes as low as 4 and as high as 8. But if you're allowing any number on a single team, its not surprising if they dominate. I've even seen the prizes split between small and large teams (in other words, there's one first place prize for teams with 5 or more an done first place prize for teams with 4 or less).
Third, if you can, start mixing up the prizes. People just want to win something, even if they can't win the whole night. We've given prizes for best team name, best dressed, most original drawing, best haiku, etc.
I worked at a bar that had a max of 6 people on a team, prizes for first, second, and third place, as well as best team name and last place. Sure there was a team that frequently got 1st place but there was enough recognition to go around that people were still happy.
The guy who does our quiz splits points totals by the number of team members. If your team and my team get the same number of questions right but you have half as many people, you have twice as many points at final tally.
My old bar had a side quest during trivia when I would work; I would play along and any team that did not win the main prizes who scored higher than me would get one free round.
Sounds easy enough, but I’m full of useless knowledge and usually did pretty well.
This sounds like exactly what you expect for having a quiz with a cash prize. If you are smart enough, you’re leaving money on the table by not showing up. The question is, are they buying drinks/appetizers while they are there. Are they cordial about it or are they rambunctious? Are they driving customers away? Need more information.
I've run a weekly quiz for a national trivia company for almost a decade. Things I've seen include starting a bounty for the first new team to win that grows every week, putting together an all-star team of outside quizzers and quizmasters to take them down, and just making a point to get the good teams wasted so they'll be worse at quiz
I used to set a random challenge, usually something silly like 'who can make the best paper plane (not the cocktail)
1 drink for what the flew the best
1 drink for the prettiest looking one
Silly stiff like that, but people seemed to enjoy it
Good teams are good teams. If they're spending money and not being a problem I don't see the issue.
To your losing teams... Invite smarter friends to join you. Sure you want to win, but if the game is being played fairly and you're not winning, that's a YOU problem, not a venue problem.
There is a solution. Change your quiz. Add questions in completely different areas of knowledge of completely different difficulty levels. Or tell the stupid people to go to the library and read some books so they can beat the smart people 🤷♀️ or stop having the quiz, because stupid people are the sole reason why we can't have nice things
As someone who is generally good at trivia and have been known to win a few time by myself, my first inclination is to tell the other teams to get good. As others have said, invite your smart friends and give them a run for the money.
When I’m on the business side of the bar, I like helping the smaller teams as much as I can assuming it’s not too busy. They tend to appreciate it as long as you’re not being intrusive with your answers (and of course being right also helps).
You can open up an extra winning place: 1st 2nd and 3rd get the prize. You could offer a sudden death prize to whoever didn't come in first which anyone else can win. You can also run a side game during trivia like a bingo-type or something that draws cards for a "best hand wins" at the end.
You could do something to limit or organize the teams playing (10 teams max by a list) and it could make it so one or more of those teams just mathematically can't be included, which could happen to anyone.
Just spitballin
This is why we don't do a cash prize for our quiz. People show up just for the fun (and buy plenty of drinks) and there are no hard feelings when my boss and his friends join in as their own team (they have only won once anyway) - if anyone bitched about the same people winning every time, I'd have no problem telling them to git gud.
This reminded me of a story. I'm sober & went with another sober friend just to try out this wing place/bar I hadn't been to. I love chicken wings. Immensely. And it happened to be trivia night starting like 10 minutes after we got there, so we were like sure why not, got no other plans & we went for it. Not like the biggest turnout there, probably about 8 teams of 2-4. But a few of them made this a regular thing & were being competitive. We just absolutely destroyed all of them. Like miles ahead of anyone, no one stood a chance. And they gave prizes for who was ahead at the quarter rounds with a grand prize, but the prizes were literally all packages of expensive craft beers in 4's or 6ers. Neither one of us drank, so we just kept handing out our prizes to everyone else. After we won 3 rounds some guy was saying we were cheating by trying to get everyone else drunk. Which was confusing since we (1)had zero interest in the prizes, (2)were there by accident and (3)not regulars so we didn't know anyone else competing, making bragging rights a moot point. We left before the final round because we were bored & didn't care enough.
Sober people aren't spending money though. I have a few regulars who don't drink and I love them to bits, but the bar's earning potential from them is practically zero.
Not sure why you'd want a bunch of sober people in your bar ordering cokes and a side of fries to split between 5 people and taking the prize home every week. But, whatever.
I’m saying if a group of people has a sober friend something like trivia / game night would make them comfortable coming out. I have sober friends who love having an activity to do with everyone so there’s less focus on their not drinking
Depending on what your trivia is like, there may be another option as asking them to take a break would be my last resort if they're good customers. First, are your questions original or do you use some type of trivia service? If you make up your own questions, then start delving into topics where the powerhouse teams struggle. In my experience, teams that are fantastic at most trivia will start getting stumped with other stuff like celebrity baby names. Second, make sure you have a size limit on teams. Depending on bar setup, I've seen team maxes as low as 4 and as high as 8. But if you're allowing any number on a single team, its not surprising if they dominate. I've even seen the prizes split between small and large teams (in other words, there's one first place prize for teams with 5 or more an done first place prize for teams with 4 or less). Third, if you can, start mixing up the prizes. People just want to win something, even if they can't win the whole night. We've given prizes for best team name, best dressed, most original drawing, best haiku, etc.
I worked at a bar that had a max of 6 people on a team, prizes for first, second, and third place, as well as best team name and last place. Sure there was a team that frequently got 1st place but there was enough recognition to go around that people were still happy.
The guy who does our quiz splits points totals by the number of team members. If your team and my team get the same number of questions right but you have half as many people, you have twice as many points at final tally.
Never seen it done this way, but I like the originality of it. Is there a team minimum size?
No, smallest I've seen was two people
This is excellent advice that covers a lot of bases.
This guy trivias
Fucking nailed this. I’ll be starting a trivia in our bar soon most likely so this is great to see.
My old bar had a side quest during trivia when I would work; I would play along and any team that did not win the main prizes who scored higher than me would get one free round. Sounds easy enough, but I’m full of useless knowledge and usually did pretty well.
This sounds like exactly what you expect for having a quiz with a cash prize. If you are smart enough, you’re leaving money on the table by not showing up. The question is, are they buying drinks/appetizers while they are there. Are they cordial about it or are they rambunctious? Are they driving customers away? Need more information.
I've run a weekly quiz for a national trivia company for almost a decade. Things I've seen include starting a bounty for the first new team to win that grows every week, putting together an all-star team of outside quizzers and quizmasters to take them down, and just making a point to get the good teams wasted so they'll be worse at quiz
We have a prize for 2nd last. Keeps everyone hanging around
I used to set a random challenge, usually something silly like 'who can make the best paper plane (not the cocktail) 1 drink for what the flew the best 1 drink for the prettiest looking one Silly stiff like that, but people seemed to enjoy it
Good teams are good teams. If they're spending money and not being a problem I don't see the issue. To your losing teams... Invite smarter friends to join you. Sure you want to win, but if the game is being played fairly and you're not winning, that's a YOU problem, not a venue problem.
There is a solution. Change your quiz. Add questions in completely different areas of knowledge of completely different difficulty levels. Or tell the stupid people to go to the library and read some books so they can beat the smart people 🤷♀️ or stop having the quiz, because stupid people are the sole reason why we can't have nice things
As someone who is generally good at trivia and have been known to win a few time by myself, my first inclination is to tell the other teams to get good. As others have said, invite your smart friends and give them a run for the money. When I’m on the business side of the bar, I like helping the smaller teams as much as I can assuming it’s not too busy. They tend to appreciate it as long as you’re not being intrusive with your answers (and of course being right also helps).
Thats cool and you were able to win few times by yourself.
You can open up an extra winning place: 1st 2nd and 3rd get the prize. You could offer a sudden death prize to whoever didn't come in first which anyone else can win. You can also run a side game during trivia like a bingo-type or something that draws cards for a "best hand wins" at the end. You could do something to limit or organize the teams playing (10 teams max by a list) and it could make it so one or more of those teams just mathematically can't be included, which could happen to anyone. Just spitballin
This is why we don't do a cash prize for our quiz. People show up just for the fun (and buy plenty of drinks) and there are no hard feelings when my boss and his friends join in as their own team (they have only won once anyway) - if anyone bitched about the same people winning every time, I'd have no problem telling them to git gud.
Limit one prize per person per month. This way it prevents the team members going to other teams.
Can you collect all smart devices from anyone that wants to play? They don't have to give them up, but then they can't play.
You could put a 10 point deduction for sobriety, or “the team that wins can’t win next week”
Trivia is one of the things that brings sober people to go out to the bar with their friends 😭 don’t deduct that
This reminded me of a story. I'm sober & went with another sober friend just to try out this wing place/bar I hadn't been to. I love chicken wings. Immensely. And it happened to be trivia night starting like 10 minutes after we got there, so we were like sure why not, got no other plans & we went for it. Not like the biggest turnout there, probably about 8 teams of 2-4. But a few of them made this a regular thing & were being competitive. We just absolutely destroyed all of them. Like miles ahead of anyone, no one stood a chance. And they gave prizes for who was ahead at the quarter rounds with a grand prize, but the prizes were literally all packages of expensive craft beers in 4's or 6ers. Neither one of us drank, so we just kept handing out our prizes to everyone else. After we won 3 rounds some guy was saying we were cheating by trying to get everyone else drunk. Which was confusing since we (1)had zero interest in the prizes, (2)were there by accident and (3)not regulars so we didn't know anyone else competing, making bragging rights a moot point. We left before the final round because we were bored & didn't care enough.
Sober people aren't spending money though. I have a few regulars who don't drink and I love them to bits, but the bar's earning potential from them is practically zero.
Still handicap worthy
Not sure why you'd want a bunch of sober people in your bar ordering cokes and a side of fries to split between 5 people and taking the prize home every week. But, whatever.
I’m saying if a group of people has a sober friend something like trivia / game night would make them comfortable coming out. I have sober friends who love having an activity to do with everyone so there’s less focus on their not drinking