How do you honor someone special who is celebrating an important birthday and also entertain your guests at the same time? It is easy! Simply create a custom trivia game with questions that draw attention to the guest of honor’s history, personality, and interests. Here are nine simple steps to get there.
1. Start a basic list of questions. You will want to discover the things that your guest of honor likes the most. Write down your favorite color, movies, TV shows, songs, food, restaurant, store, vacation destination, and hobbies. You can break it down even further by being even more specific. For example, in the food category, you might ask for your favorite fruit, ice cream flavor, candy bar, Chinese food, burger chain, and Italian dish.
Include some important firsts in the list. You might ask what your first job was, address, girlfriend or boyfriend, pet, and first time you voted. Look at the childhood of the guest of honor (what he wanted to be when he grew up, best friend when he was a kid). Please list a few names (list two co-workers, best man or maid of honor, middle name).
2. Go to the source to get answers. If you want to make sure your answers are accurate, ask the person who has experienced it. Unless it’s a surprise party, you can interview the guest of honor to get all the facts. Ask him specific questions, then encourage him to turn those answers into stories. Take notes and choose interesting tidbits to include in your quiz.
3. Get a different perspective. Ask a close friend or relative to remember the birthday boy or girl. They may present little-known details about the person. Keep in mind that if you get the story secondhand, it might be a good idea to verify the information with the celebrant.
4. Edit any questions that might embarrass the guest of honor. The idea is to recognize the celebrant for their personality, achievements and way of life, without making them feel uncomfortable, revealing secrets or stirring up memories.
5. Make it even more interesting with photos. Show a photo of the celebrant’s beloved childhood pet and ask for that dog’s name. Present a snapshot of the old family home and ask your guests about the name of the street. Look through old photographs for ideas for questions.
6. Format your questions. Use multiple options, true or false, and fill in the blank. An example of multiple choice might be: “What hospital was Fred born in: a – Margaret Hague, b – Jersey City Medical Center, or c – St. Francis Hospital?”
You can be more imaginative with true or false, because you can make things up that will have a false answer. For example, “True or false, when Mary was a child, did she keep a pet guinea pig?” If a guest answers false correctly, he can give her extra points if she knows that she really took care of a hamster.
7. Rearrange your questions. Start with the easiest ones that would be common knowledge to most guests. If almost everyone in the party knows the answers, trust will be built. Then, once the group is comfortable responding, increase the difficulty to make it more challenging.
8. Decide how to play this birthday party game. You can put each question on a separate sheet of paper and let people draw a question and an answer. Another option is to just read each one and let anyone shout out a response. Or you can play in teams and make it like a game show, like “Family Feud.”
9. Choose a prize. Even if you give only a small gift, it will encourage competition at the birthday party. You may also want it to tie in with one of the guest of honor’s interests. How about sharing a DVD of your favorite movie, a gift card to your favorite restaurant, or a book about one of your hobbies?
It’s easy to create a custom trivia quiz based on the life of the guest of honor. Your audience will be entertained by this lively party game and maybe even learn something new about the celebrant. The birthday boy or girl will be humbled by the attention that is focused on their history and uniqueness. And it will help make this milestone birthday an event to remember.