GuidesGroups and events

Live competitions: hosting and joining events

A competition is a quiz played by many people on the same questions, with a leaderboard that moves as answers come in. Hosting is a Premium feature; joining is free unless the host sets an entry fee.

Joining an event

Public events are listed under Events; private ones reach you as a link. The event page shows the banner, description, host, start time, duration, number of questions, who may take part and what it costs. Join from there. If the host requires approval, your request is queued until they accept it; you can watch as a spectator in the meantime if spectating is open.

Some hosts restrict where an event can be played — only in the installed app, or only in a browser. If you open one on the wrong platform the app tells you, and the fix is simply to open it on the other.

Events with a set start time have a lobby. Join before the start, wait there, and everyone begins together on the host's clock. Open-window events skip the lobby: you start whenever you like within the window and get the full quiz duration from that moment.

Hosting: the three event types

Events are created from the Studio. The first choice shapes everything else.

Scheduled start. Everyone plays together at the time you set. Players join beforehand and wait in the lobby. The classic class-on-a-projector format.
Scheduled — host starts manually. Same as above, but the event does not begin at the scheduled time; you start it yourself when you are ready, which is useful when a class runs late.
Open window. Players can join any time between the start and end you set. Each gets their own quiz duration from the moment they join, and the leaderboard stays hidden until the window closes so late joiners cannot see earlier scores.

The question set

Pick an existing quiz or write questions for the event; every participant faces the same set, in a shuffled order if you enable randomisation. You can edit the questions until five minutes before a scheduled start, at which point they lock along with the start time.

Timing

Either every question has its own timer, in which case the event's end time is the sum of them, or there is one timer for the whole quiz and participants can move freely between questions. Set the start time and the end time is calculated for you.

Scoring, penalties and prizes

Correct answers use the standard competition scoring automatically. You can optionally set negative marking — a number of marks deducted for each wrong answer — which changes how a cautious player should treat a question they are unsure of. Say so in the description. Under Rewards you can list what each finishing position wins — a description and, optionally, a picture for first, second, third and so on. Rewards are shown on the event page and arranged by you; the platform does not hold or pay them.

Who can join, who can watch

Participation	Meaning
Anyone	Anyone who finds the event can play. If you also switch off public listing, it can only be joined via the link.
Request approval	Players ask to join and you approve them from the event page.
Invite only	Only people you invite can play. Others can request, or spectate.

Spectating is separate: anyone can watch, or watchers must request permission. Spectators see the live leaderboard without playing.

Entry fees and platform

An event is free by default, or you can charge a one-time fee to participate. Fees are paid in the app through Paystack and the split is the same as for paid quizzes — see Earning as a creator. You can also restrict the event to the installed app or to the web version, which matters if you intend to enforce exam conditions: fullscreen enforcement behaves differently on a phone and in a browser, and choosing one platform makes the rules the same for everyone.

During the event

Participants answer on their own devices while the leaderboard updates in real time (except in open-window events, where it appears when the window closes). Leaving fullscreen or switching away from the page is recorded, and repeated absences end the attempt — details in Exam mode and fair play. Everyone who has joined a scheduled event gets a reminder notification about half an hour before it starts.

Afterwards

The final leaderboard stays on the event page, and every participant can review their own attempt question by question. Completed events appear in each player's history and count toward their competition statistics. As host you can see results per participant from the Studio, which is the point of running a class test this way: you know who sat it and how they did without collecting a single sheet of paper.

Try it in the app. Everything on this page is free to start with. Open QuizzyApp, or browse the published quizzes first. Something not covered here? The support page has the questions we get most.