Trivia Pursuit — Area bars ready to pick your brain
BY MISHA DAVENPORT January 19, 2012 11:16AM
John Garcia (from left), Ashely Harris, Ronnail Wilson and Jon Wakeland do their best to match headshots with names during a round of trivia competition at the Globe Pub. | Tom Cruze ~ sun-times
Updated: January 19, 2012 9:35PM
A staple in taverns in the United Kingdom, trivia nights are quickly becoming a popular destination for American pub-crawlers.
While once a rare occurrence in Chicago establishments, the last seven years or so have seen trivia nights — which feature a host and teams or individuals matching wits for rounds of drinks or other prizes — become a standard of the local bar scene. With the notable exception of Saturdays, you can pretty much find a trivia night every day of the week.
Dan Burns is the founder, president and general manager of Whaddayaknow Free Pub Trivia, a company paid to organize and host trivia nights at various bars in the Chicago area. Burns moved to Chicago from the Boston area in 2007 and was surprised to find that Trivia nights that are staples of Boston nightlife were virtually non-existent here.
“It just didn’t make any sense to me,” Burns says. “Chicago is the perfect city for trivia. It’s a lot bigger than Boston, has more restaurants and bars, and my time living in Boston taught me that trivia nights are a perfect activity for after work and to bring people in on off nights.”
What began as a search for pubs to satisfy his own trivia fix soon ballooned into a full-fledged business for Burns.
“I originally approached two bars — Cans and Waterhouse — about hosting a quiz night,” Burns says. “It’s now a full-time job for me to write questions and host. We do trivia nights in almost two dozen bars.”
The basics to any trivia night do not seem to change much from bar to bar, regardless of who is hosting. Game play is most often team-based, with several rounds covering a multitude of topics. There’s usually a lot of trivia based on pop culture, but some nights even throw in questions regarding science and history.
“The success of any trivia night can be attributed to its content,” says Burns.
Quiz master Dave Ahrens has been hosting a trivia night on Wednesdays at the Globe Pub for seven years. He says he takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the questions he creates.
“I was a huge fan of that old MTV game show ‘Remote Control,” he says. “The questions are challenging, but I want them to be fun.”
Previous categories include “Dead or Canadian,” “Emperor Palpatine or Dick Cheney” and “Chemical States.” The latter challenges players to successfully identify chemicals and states from a word. (For example, “COLA” would be carbon, oxygen and Louisiana.)
Ahrens also offers clues to categories Wednesday mornings on his blog, quizmasterdaveahrens.blogspot.com.
“At first, I thought if I keep writing tough questions, I need to give people a chance to answer,” Ahrens says. “People ended up studying up on the categories, posted and that sort of takes fun out of it. I still post the categories for that day’s trivia game, but now I post them as anagrams.”
Players vie for $75, $50 and $25 gift certificates to the Globe, but even the losing team doesn’t go home empty-handed.
“The losing team gets to choose a topic for next week’s quiz,” Ahrens explains. “I did have to give myself full veto power, though. No more questions about “Lost,” and as challenging as you may think a round on mortgages might be, it’s going to go over like a lead balloon.”
Taking a somewhat more holy approach (albeit very much tongue-in-cheek) is Brian Wells. On Monday nights at 8 p.m. at Crew Bar and Grill, Wells dons a habit and hosts Pub Stumpers Trivia as a catechism class run by Sister Mary Monistat.
“Sister has four rules: no cell phones, no texting, no talking and keep your eyes on your own paper,” Wells says, laughing. “She will hit students on the head with a ruler if they don’t follow the rules.”
Individuals and teams are given an answer book in which to write down their responses. Sister grades the books at the end of the round and then returns them.
Unlike a real nun, Wells doesn’t take points off for penmanship, grammar, spelling or correct use of the margins.
“She is a stickler for the right answer,” he says. “In the music round, students have complained to her because they answered ‘The Supremes’ when the correct answer was ‘Diana Ross and the Supremes.’”
Though not required, Wells says Sister even awards perfect attendance at the end of a 12-week “class.”
“Sister thinks it is important to have a drawing for those who may never win, but nonetheless just show up.”
Misha Davenport is a Chicago-based freelance writer.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment