Interactive Game Show Tips for Meetings

A Game Show session always infuses new energy into the day and enlivens the event. It is one of the most popular uses for an audience response system.

There are two reasons for having a Game Show session: playing a game to test or impart knowledge, or just to have fun and bring people together. Trivia games are generally played for fun at lunch or dinner so that they do not take time away from the business of the day’s sessions. If the game is being played simply for fun, the game rules are far less important than the entertainment value.

TV game show producers want winners—so should you.

There is a lesson to be learned from TV game shows. (Quick Tally® provides the studio audience voting for many of them.) A lot of energy is put into planning the appeal of the show to the specific viewing audience. The time slot and demographics of the viewers are all carefully considered. The choice of questions has to be appropriate both for the players to be successful and the targeted viewing audience. The same should be true of your game show.

Here are some important considerations sometimes overlooked in playing interactive games at meetings:

• Just as in gambling casinos, where the excitement is generated by the sights and sounds of winners, TV producers want some big winners because it increases viewership. Your event should produce winners and in the process use audio, video and lighting to create excitement.
• No one wants to be a loser, or part of a group or company that got it all wrong. Increase the possibility of responding correctly and keep things up-beat. By reducing the number of choices to the questions, even from 4 to 3, TV producers increase the odds of winning in the players’ favor. They also increase the odds that the audience will guess the correct response and feel smart. Help your attendees guess correctly and feel like winners.
• Keep everyone playing and in the running. The biggest mistake made is early elimination of players. If your plan is to have individuals on stage representing teams, consider keeping the rest of the audience involved as an ongoing “life line.” Avoid playing elimination games. It is very important to the overall energy and interest in the session. And, if you are tracking responses to determine further training, the longer everyone plays, the more information there will be.
• Cheating. It is typical that Sales Representatives seated together as teams at rounds, look to one of the players for the correct response. Sometimes they hold up a finer for their fellow team members representing the correct choice. Then to throw of the other teams they hold up a number of fingers representing an incorrect choice. If the goal is to have fun and to reinforce knowledge no one seems to care.

The Game

The Game Show itself is very simple to put together. Quick Tally®, with almost thirty years of TV and corporate game show experience, will guide you through the process.

Most corporate events use a team-oriented version of Jeopardy in which the entire audience is divided into a number of teams. The process is made easier if the audience is comprised of naturally competitive members, such as sales representatives. An investment in some production value, such as props (even hokey hats/t-shirts), sets, a professional host, prizes and well-written questions, really pays off.

Keep the game as simple as possible. It is extremely difficult to prepare for all of the possible unexpected twists that may occur. It looks simple and seamless on TV because TV shows are not shot in real time; they stop and start while problems are solved and mistakes are covered over by retakes. In addition to weeks of preparation, there are forty to eighty people working a full day to shoot a single half-hour show. Keep the game light and forgiving, and it will be fun and informative for everyone.