Get the group size right
The single biggest factor in whether an online quiz night works is how many people are in the room. Four to six is the sweet spot: everyone gets a turn to be right, the chat does not overflow, and nobody sits silent for twenty minutes. Below three it stops feeling like a contest; above eight, people start talking over each other and the quiet ones vanish.
If you have a larger group, split into two rooms and compare scores at the end rather than cramming everyone into one. Two lively rooms of five beat one awkward room of ten every time.
Plan the rounds before anyone joins
A quiz night with no shape is just a list of questions, and it runs out of energy fast. Give it an arc: an easy warm-up round to get everyone answering, a couple of harder themed rounds in the middle, and a fast final round where the scores can still change. Three rounds of ten questions is enough for an hour; five is enough for a full evening.
Mix the categories so no single person cleans up. Pair a general-knowledge round with a specialist one, and the person who knows all the sport is suddenly out of their depth on art. That swing is what keeps people leaning in.
Protect the pace
Dead air kills a quiz night. Keep a timer on every question so nobody stalls, reveal the answer immediately, and move on. If you are reading questions yourself, resist the urge to explain each answer — a one-line "it was the octopus, they have three hearts" is fun; a paragraph is a lecture.
A platform that runs the timer and scoring for you removes the most common failure point: the host getting distracted and the whole thing grinding to a halt. On omequiz the questions advance on a clock and the leaderboard updates itself, so you can play instead of administrate.
Decide on cameras up front
Video is optional and it changes the feel. With cameras on, a quiz night is a hangout with a game attached — you see the groans and the fist-pumps. With cameras off, it is a tighter, faster contest. Neither is wrong; just decide before you start so nobody is caught out, and make clear that turning a camera off mid-game is always fine.
A simple format that works
If you want a template: open a room, pick three categories, invite four or five friends with the code, and play three rounds of ten. Keep cameras optional, keep the timer short, and let the platform handle the score. Do that and the evening runs itself — which is the whole point of hosting rather than refereeing.