How to Use a Quiz to Make Your Event More Fun Before Doors Open

Your event doesn’t have to start when the doors open.

In fact, some of the best opportunities to engage your audience happen before anyone walks through the door.

A simple quiz can turn the days or weeks leading up to your event into part of the experience. Instead of simply reminding people that your event is coming, you can give them something fun to do, something to share, and a reason to interact with your event before it even begins.

But there’s another benefit.

A well-designed quiz can also give you valuable insight into your audience.

You can use quizzes for trivia, personality-style results, prize entries, team challenges, audience voting, or even questions that help you decide what to include in your next event.

Here’s how to make them work.

🎟️ Don’t Just Promote Your Event — Start the Experience Early

Most event promotion is straightforward:

Event announcement → Buy tickets → Attend event

A quiz gives you another step:

Discover → Play → Share → Buy → Attend

That small interaction can make your event feel like something people are already participating in rather than something they’re simply waiting to attend.

For example, imagine you’re promoting a comedy night.

Instead of another social post saying:

“Only 10 days until the show!”

You could post:

“How well do you know your favourite comedians? Take our 60-second comedy quiz and see if you can get 8/10.”

Now you’ve given people something to do.

And if the quiz connects naturally to your event, you’re also keeping the event itself in their mind.

🧠 Use Trivia to Build Excitement

Trivia is one of the easiest ways to create pre-event engagement.

The questions can relate directly to your event, performers, industry, city, venue, sport, music genre, or theme.

A music event might ask:

• Which artist released a particular hit?
• How well do you know this genre?
• Can you identify the decade from a song title?
• Which performer has appeared at previous events?

A boxing event could create a boxing-history quiz.

A business conference could create an industry trivia challenge.

A food festival could test people’s knowledge of different cuisines.

The important thing is that the quiz should be fun even for someone who hasn’t bought a ticket yet.

Then connect the result back to the event.

“Got 9/10? You’ll probably love Saturday’s lineup.”

That feels much more engaging than another advertisement.

🎭 Create Personality-Style Results

Not every quiz needs a right or wrong answer.

Personality-style quizzes can give attendees a fun result based on their answers.

For example:

“What Type of Concert Attendee Are You?”

Results might include:

🎤 The Front-Row Fan

🎶 The Music Explorer

📸 The Social Butterfly

🕺 The Dance-Floor Regular

🍹 The Relaxed Listener

The result gives people something they can share with friends.

More importantly, the result can lead naturally back to your event.

“You’re a Front-Row Fan. Here’s the event you’ll want to be at.”

This turns a quiz into part of your promotional funnel without making the experience feel like an advertisement.

🎁 Turn the Quiz Into a Prize Entry

Want to give people an even stronger reason to participate?

Add a prize.

You could offer:

• Free event tickets
• VIP upgrades
• Merchandise
• Meet-and-greet opportunities
• Food or drink vouchers
• Exclusive event experiences
• Discount codes
• Future-event tickets

For example:

Take the quiz → Enter your email → Get entered into the ticket giveaway.

This gives your audience a reason to participate while giving you an opportunity to continue communicating with them.

Just make sure your contest and data-collection process follows the rules that apply to your event and location.

👥 Turn It Into a Team Challenge

Quizzes don’t have to be individual.

They can become a competition between groups.

Imagine promoting a trivia night with:

“Which team will dominate before the event even starts?”

You could allow attendees to create or join teams such as:

• Team Toronto
• Team Music
• Team Comedy
• Team VIP
• Team North
• Team South

Or let attendees create their own team names.

Then display a leaderboard or reveal results at the event.

Now your pre-event quiz has created a reason for people to talk about the event before they arrive.

It can even encourage attendees to recruit their friends.

🗳️ Ask Your Audience What They Want

This is where quizzes become particularly useful for organizers.

You don’t always need to ask:

“Did you like our event?”

You can ask questions that help you make decisions.

For example:

“Which type of session should we add to the next event?”

A conference could ask:

• More networking?
• More workshops?
• More guest speakers?
• Longer Q&A sessions?

A music event could ask:

• More local artists?
• More DJs?
• Longer sets?
• Different genres?

A comedy event could ask:

• More stand-up?
• More audience interaction?
• More performers?
• A different show format?

You’re not just entertaining people.

You’re learning what they want.

📊 Use Quiz Answers as Audience Insight

One of the biggest advantages of interactive content is that it can generate information that traditional advertising doesn’t.

A social media post might tell you that someone saw your event.

A quiz can tell you something about what interests them.

You can learn things such as:

• Which topics attract the most interest
• Which performers people recognize
• Which event formats appeal to your audience
• What people want to see next
• Which activities generate the most engagement
• What different audience groups care about

That information can help you plan future events.

For example, if hundreds of people participate in a quiz and the majority choose a particular type of session, that could be useful information when you’re planning the next event.

It’s not a guarantee that everyone will attend — but it gives you another data point to consider.

🔥 Make the Quiz Part of Your Countdown

Your quiz doesn’t have to be a one-time promotion.

You can build it into your event countdown.

14 Days Before

“Think you know our headliner? Take the quiz.”

10 Days Before

“Only true fans can get 10/10.”

7 Days Before

“Which part of the event are you most excited about?”

3 Days Before

“Final challenge: How well do you know this year’s lineup?”

1 Day Before

“Tomorrow’s the big day. Take the final quiz and see your result.”

Suddenly your countdown isn’t just a series of advertisements.

It’s a series of interactions.

📱 Give People Something Worth Sharing

A quiz works particularly well when the result is easy to share.

For example:

“I got 9/10 on the Ultimate Hip-Hop Trivia Challenge.”

Or:

“Apparently I’m a Front-Row Fan. 😂”

Or:

“Our team is currently #1!”

Those results can create organic conversations around your event.

The trick is to make the result socially interesting.

If someone gets a boring result that simply says “Thanks for participating,” there’s not much reason to share it.

Give them something memorable.

🎟️ Connect the Quiz to Ticket Sales

The quiz shouldn’t exist completely separately from your event.

Give participants a natural next step.

For example:

Finished the quiz?

Check out the event →

See the lineup →

Get your tickets →

You can also offer quiz participants an event-specific incentive where appropriate, such as early access or a promotional code.

The goal isn’t to aggressively push a ticket after every question.

It’s to create a logical journey:

Engage → Discover → Consider → Buy

🎮 Use Quizzes During the Event Too

The quiz doesn’t have to disappear when the doors open.

You can bring it into the live event.

Imagine putting questions on the big screen and having the audience answer from their phones.

You could run:

🏆 Live trivia

🎤 Performer trivia

🎯 Audience challenges

😂 Funny event-related questions

🗳️ “What should happen next?”

📊 Audience polls

🏅 Team competitions

This makes your audience participants rather than spectators.

And it gives organizers another opportunity to understand what their audience enjoys.

🔄 Turn Pre-Event Answers Into Post-Event Questions

Here’s another interesting opportunity.

Ask people something before the event and revisit the subject afterward.

Before the event:

“Which performer are you most excited to see?”

After the event:

“Who was your favourite performer?”

Before:

“Which session are you most interested in?”

After:

“Which session did you enjoy the most?”

Before:

“What are you hoping to get from this event?”

After:

“Did the event deliver what you expected?”

Now you’re not just collecting isolated answers.

You’re starting to understand the difference between expectation and experience.

That can be incredibly useful when planning your next event.

🤝 Let Performers Get Involved

Your quiz can also help performers promote the event.

Imagine a performer sharing:

“Think you know me? Take my event trivia challenge.”

Their followers participate, see the event, and have an opportunity to purchase tickets.

You can take this a step further by giving performers and promoters trackable referral links through your affiliate network.

Now you’ve connected:

Performer → Quiz → Audience → Ticket → Referral

The performer isn’t simply posting a flyer.

They’re giving their audience something interactive.

📈 Test Different Types of Quizzes

You don’t have to guess which format your audience prefers.

Try different approaches.

Quiz #1 — Trivia

“How well do you know the event?”

Quiz #2 — Personality

“What type of attendee are you?”

Quiz #3 — Voting

“Which session should we add?”

Quiz #4 — Challenge

“Can you beat the current high score?”

Quiz #5 — Prediction

“Who do you think will steal the show?”

Then compare participation.

Which quiz gets the most completions?

Which generates the most shares?

Which produces the most ticket clicks?

Which questions generate the most useful feedback?

That’s where entertainment becomes event strategy.

🛠️ Make It Easy With The Local Ticket

The Local Ticket gives event organizers the opportunity to build interactive experiences around their events rather than relying solely on traditional ticket promotion.

You can use quizzes, trivia, polls, and surveys to engage your audience before, during, and after the event.

You can also connect that engagement with your broader event-growth strategy.

Your performers, promoters, partners, and affiliates can help spread the event.

Your audience can participate in challenges and quizzes.

And your questions can help you understand what people actually want from future events.

That creates a much bigger picture than simply asking:

“How many tickets did we sell?”

You’re also asking:

“Who is interested?”

“What do they care about?”

“What did they enjoy?”

“What should we do next?”

📋 Your Pre-Event Quiz Checklist

Before launching your quiz, ask:

☐ Does the quiz relate naturally to the event?

☐ Is it genuinely fun?

☐ Can someone participate without already knowing everything about the event?

☐ Does it have a clear result?

☐ Is there something worth sharing?

☐ Can participants win something?

☐ Are you collecting useful audience information?

☐ Can participants easily find the event afterward?

☐ Can performers or partners share it?

☐ Can you use the results to improve a future event?

If you can check most of these boxes, your quiz is doing more than filling time.

It’s becoming part of your event strategy.

🚀 Your Event Can Start Before the Doors Open

The best event promotion doesn’t always feel like promotion.

Sometimes it’s a challenge.

Sometimes it’s a trivia question.

Sometimes it’s a funny personality result.

Sometimes it’s a vote that lets your audience influence what’s coming next.

And sometimes it’s simply a question that makes someone think:

“I want to see what this event is all about.”

With The Local Ticket, organizers can use interactive quizzes, trivia, polls, and surveys to create those moments while also learning more about their audience.

Because the event doesn’t have to begin when the doors open.

You can start building the experience long before the first person walks through them.