If you are tired of sitting home watching TV and your local area does not have much to offer in the form of regular entertainment, have you considered attending a trivia night? Pub trivia or trivia night quiz competitions are great for a regular weekly get together with friends. They offer something for all ages, they are stimulating and interactive, they leave you plenty of time to talk and give you lots of things to talk about!
Trivia nights usually organize their competition so that someone books a table and then people sitting at the table compete as a team, so 2-8 people are needed and they need a team name.
People often have a preconception that trivia nights are for brainiacs. But don’t bother racking your brain and flicking through address books looking for someone with a university degree. Trivia nights generally include trivia questions about pop culture trivia, not really university degree type knowledge.
Most people have more knowledge than we think. Instead of looking for intellectuals, you’ll be better off looking for team members who are avid fans of something.
Do you know someone who watches a lot of TV? People who have watched every episode of the Simpsons, or South Park, Friends or Neighbours have a brain chock full of TV characters and their foibles. Music lovers with a CD collection spanning several decades are useful. Travellers have a wealth of knowledge about locations and cities and rivers and if they also speak several languages it’s a bonus. Amateur chefs can also tip the balance if you get a tricky food trivia question. Sports lovers are a bonus.
Getting a good trivia night team together may be the prime objective for those with a highly competitive streak who are playing to win jackpots and prizes. Most of us are just happy to pick up a bar voucher or a free dinner coupon at a trivia night. We’ll keep going out to a trivia night for the social interaction, so long as the host and our friends make us laugh and we don’t come last every week.
Here are 10 Trivia Night tips for people who haven’t attended a trivia night before.
- 1. Turn up around 15-30 minutes before the trivia night starts. You’ll be able to pick a good table, where you can see the screen and are able to hear the questions better, and you won’t be holding up the trivia host from starting the quiz as he explains the rules to you.
- 2. Don’t be afraid to be uncool enough to drag along a younger or older acquaintance to a trivia night. People from different generations have a vastly different knowledge base, that can make all the difference.
- 3. Turn off or simply don’t take your mobile phone in with you. Serious trivia night competitors can suffer from highly aggressive “cheat rage” if they see you checking your messages, and many clubs and hosts take a dim view of anyone bringing in mobile phones as well.
- 4. As competitors compete as a trivia team, if you drag a friend or two along with you, you’ll enjoy yourself more. Trivia hosts will often try and fit singles into an already established team, but you take pot luck as to who your team mates are. You might be lucky and make new friends or you might be stuck at a table with a rowdy crowd who are more interested in each other and the beer, than the trivia night competition or you.
- 5. Don’t overdo the know it alls on your trivia team just to fill up the table. Too many strong personalities arguing they’re right can spoil all the fun for the rest of the team. Friendships have been known to die at trivia nights because a dominant personality over ruled a friends correct answer with his own wrong one.
- 6. If you intend to question the trivia host about an answer you “know” to be correct, be prepared to back it up with a reputable source. These do not include Wikipedia or an internet website unless they also cite a reference source with more weight.
- 7. A prize is often given for the best trivia team name. So put your thinking cap on and come up with an inventive team name. A clever play on words is trumped by the name that gets the most laughs.
- 8. Make sure the person chosen to write down the answers to the trivia quiz questions, writes clearly and can spell. You don’t want to lose points on technicalities. It helps if this person is also very decisive, he or she can then play referee when two team members are both certain about two different possible answers.
- 9. Trust your instincts. The first answer to pop into your head at a trivia night is most likely to be the true one. Don’t over think it.
- 10. Beware of trick questions. Ignore the tip above and think carefully before you commit to an answer that seems too easy. Quiz masters love to throw a spanner in the works by playing on obvious answers that are false. Want an example? This is a good one. How many months in a typical year have 28 days in them? Did you answer “One – February!”? It’s true that only February ends after 28 days apart from a leap year but it’s also true that all 12 months in a normal calendar year have at least 28 days in them. So the answer is actually 12.
So if you want a stimulating entertaining night out, why not give a trivia night a go? Stretch the brain, improve the memory, have a great night out and enjoy the company and conversation of friends.