Running a live quiz for a full lecture hall: what 1 vs 100 taught us
1 vs 100 is a live quiz for events: one person on stage against the whole room, everyone answering the same question on their phones against the same clock. The first time it ran at a real faculty event, the vice dean played against the students, and most of the room ended up watching instead of playing. Here is why, and how to run one well.
How it works
The host creates a game and gets a six-digit PIN. The game goes on the big screen in Present mode. Players open the site on their phones, tap Play, and join with the PIN. Nobody has to sign in. It is free and holds up to 1,000 players in one game.
What went wrong the first time
The game has knockout rounds: answer wrong and you are out. So a player who joined after the start was made a spectator, to stop anyone walking into a knockout halfway through.
In testing that rule never fires, because everyone is in the lobby before you press Start. A lecture hall is different. People are still walking in, finding the QR code and typing a name when the host decides the room looks full. The host pressed Start with about 45 people in. Everyone who finished joining a second later watched for the whole game.
We kept the event going and carried the stranded players into the next round by hand. The rule was changed and deployed during the event: a latecomer now joins as a full player in a round where nobody can be eliminated, and comes in alive at the next question in a knockout round. Players already stuck as spectators were brought back in automatically.
The two players who were knocked out
Two players were knocked out who should not have been. It was not the server. Both had switched away from the tab mid-game, and when they came back the phone reloaded the page, which in a knockout round cost them their place.
Phones suspend tabs they are not showing and reload them when they want the memory back. Nobody in a lecture hall keeps one tab open for an hour.
If you run a quiz at your event
Put the PIN and the QR code on screen early and leave them up. Wait for the room before you press Start, longer than feels necessary. Tell players once, out loud, to stay on the tab during knockout rounds. And have one person whose only job is to watch for anyone stuck.