What are the Best Prizes for a Trivia Night?

We get asked that a lot. Here are some tips to help you select the best prizes to award your top trivia teams along with some other ideas to keep your crowd around event if they can’t win the big prizes.

In my experience, people that play themed trivia aren’t that motivated to play by any prize they can win. They are more motivated to have fun and show their love for a particular TV show or movie. Choosing prizes related to that theme can add to the fun, especially when the competition is tight.

If you are charging to play trivia, the expectation will be that there will be prizes equivalent to the cost for a team to play. So, if you charge $10 a person with 4 person teams, the prize for the first-place team should be in the $40-$50 range and decrease for second and third. We do not recommend prizes for teams that finish outside of the top 3. (See our blog post about charging to pay trivia).

If you are not charging, a gift card for your bar or brewery is an appropriate prize. Make that gift card redeemable on their next visit to encourage repeat business. People also like to get swag like your logo shirts or glasses. It’s also a clever idea to give a prize to the team that finishes dead last. This will encourage teams to stick around to the end.

Our trivia kits always include prize ideas based on the theme. We look for items that are related to that theme that might not be easily found by fans of the show or movie. One item that we found that does not make a good prize is a DVD box set of the show or movie. Fans that are coming to a themed trivia will own these already.

Let us know what you have found to be a good prize in the comment section.