Setting up, before anyone arrives
1
Plug the big screen laptop into the telly. Open this website and press Big screen. Then press F11 to fill the whole screen. Leave it alone from now on.
2
On your laptop, open the same website and press Controls. Type the PIN — it starts as 2468.
3
Check the green dot at the top right says Big screen connected. The little telly picture on the right of your screen shows exactly what the room can see.
If the two laptops ever stop talking to each other, you can run the whole night from one laptop: press Open the big screen in a new window in Screen & settings, then drag that window onto the telly.
The quiz
1
On the Quiz tab, tick the rounds you fancy and press Build the quiz. It picks fresh questions every time — ones you've used before won't come back.
2
Print the answer sheets from the Print page, so each team has one.
3
Then just keep pressing the big gold button. It always says what happens next: show the round title, then each question, then read them back, then the answers one at a time, then on to the next round.
4
Pressed it once too often? Go back undoes it. Nothing is ever lost.
5
Put the bingo or the scores up in the middle of a round? A red Back to the quiz button appears — it tells you exactly where you left off, like "Back to the quiz — question 3", and puts that very question straight back up.
Don't like a question? Press the ✕ beside it in the list and it swaps for another one.
The bingo
1
Print the tickets from the Print page. Every ticket is different.
2
On the Bingo tab, choose what you're playing for — one line, two lines or full house.
3
Press Call the next number. It shows up huge on the telly with the old-fashioned call, and the board keeps track of everything called.
4
Called one by mistake? Undo that call puts it back in the bag.
5
When somebody shouts, type their name in and press Show the winner.
If you'd rather the computer called the numbers out through the telly, tick Read the numbers out loud.
The scores
Add each team on the Scores tab, then type their marks in as the rounds go by. Press Put the leaderboard on the screen whenever you want the room to see how it's going. Totals and places sort themselves out.
Two ways to show it: Totals only for a simple league table, or Every round, plus totals to show how each team did in each round. Press either button and the big screen changes straight away.
Changing the welcome screen
On Screen & settings you can change the big heading — make it "Christmas Quiz & Bingo" or "Charity Night", whatever suits — and add a message underneath. Press Save the welcome screen and it goes straight up.
Clear the heading box and save to get "Quiz & Bingo Night" back. Long wording is fine; the writing shrinks itself to fit the telly.
The next quiz night
Just build a new quiz. Everything already used is remembered, so you'll get fresh questions each week without doing anything.
If you ever want to run the same quiz twice — a repeat for a different crowd, say — simply don't build a new one. It stays exactly as it was, even if you close the laptops.
There's a button in Screen & settings to make every question available again, but you'll have to type RESET to prove you meant it. You shouldn't need it for a very long time.
