Museum Online Quizzing from the Comfort of Your Own Home


We have not found it easy to move our inhouse activity online during lockdowns. Staff capacity through furlough and pandemic related tasks, has not enabled us to explore engaging with our online audiences as much as we would have liked too. However, one activity we have managed to move online is our regular quiz. And on Friday 14th we will be hosting our third online quiz night. 

Last year, staff discussions led us to explore the idea of moving our quiz night online. Tentatively, we discussed how we would host this, who would write the questions, how we would market the event, how to ensure it would go as smoothly as possible. We knew that many places were providing online quizzes to engage folk with uptodate online experiences to ensure their quiz was first class. Because we were unsure how our quiz would pan out we decided to take the 'laid back and relaxed' approach. However, the team worked hard to provide a light-hearted approach to our initial quiz.

We were lucky to be able to host our first quiz from the Museum, scheduled just after lockdown 2. Surrounded by half-eaten pizza we went live to a virtual audience situated across the country, providing an evening of festive entertainment in early December, entertaining not just for the quiz goers but also for the staff! For us, there was plenty of learning about length of quiz questions, providing a round on Cumbria when some folk were taking part from outside the County, ensuring people could understand us when reading out questions. Our virtual audience were very kind and offered feedback which we took on board when planning our second quiz in February. Yes, we were brave enough to tackle a second quiz.

However, this proved more complicated due to lockdown 3 and the staff undertook to run it from their own individual homes. Museum Assistant Nick worked hard to ensure the smooth running of the quiz, working out the logistics and overcoming problems as they arose. No Cumbria round this time but the staff question-setters raised the bar and many of the quiz goers commented on the level of difficulty! Our intention wasn't to provide an equivalent of Mastermind but an evening of fun and entertainment, so we have taken this onboard with our third quiz scheduled for Friday 14th May.

Yes, bravely we have programmed a third quiz night and as the date approaches, we are working out the quiz rounds, promoting the event and sorting out how it will all work. This time it's a 'not as difficult as last time quiz' to encourage more folk to take part. Although we sell tickets it is not a major fundraiser but helps provide a little bit of income to purchase staff work t-shirts and wall hangings for our cafe. But it is building staff confidence in hosting online events, developing our skills and reaching out to an online audience. Small steps. As we continue with our programme planning for the next couple of years, we are aware that we need to provide more virtual activity. The quiz is the start of this process.

So why not join us for a bit of Friday night quizzing? We would love you to join us!

https://www.cumbriasmuseumofmilitarylife.org/product/01-museum-quiz-night/



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