I was thinking to myself the other day (note: I do a lot of thinking to myself, possibly more than is healthy) – why do people go to pub quizzes? What’s in it for them, the good people who attend quizzes such as mine week after week, month after month, year after year…? I’d love to say that people go to my particular brand of pub quizzes because of my dashing good looks, sparkling wit and amazing fashion sense…but people who are acquainted with me will know that AT LEAST one of those isn’t true! But anyway, I digress…here are five (real) reasons why, in my ‘esteemed’ opinion, people go to, and enjoy pub quizzes…
1. Pub quizzes are FUN.
Or, at least, they’re meant to be. I try to make my quizzes as fun for my quizgoers as possible. The first step involves writing interesting, sometimes thought-provoking (not TOO taxing, mind, or the ‘fun’ element quickly disappears), occasionally silly questions. I tend to make the first question in each round, shall we say, not too taxing (for example – ‘The members of which chart-topping girl group starred in the 1997 film ‘Spice World’?’ Hmmm…I wonder which chart-topping girl group THAT could be…). Then I can move on to the slightly more challenging stuff about 18th century German philosophers, the moons of Neptune and pre-Renaissance architecture…only joking! (Although there could be an interesting fact lurking somewhere in one of those topics…) I try to make the questions in each round as varied as possible, both in breadth of knowledge and in range of difficulty. If done right (something which takes some time to master), then a pub quiz can be a great way for people to relax and unwind after a long day’s work, or, having just watched your team get thrashed 5-0, a way to take your mind off things. (A few pints / glasses of wine during the quiz never go amiss either!) Also (particularly for people with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge such as myself), you might well learn something new – something interesting, something surprising, something random, something amusing! For example, did you know that a Smurf is three apples tall…? Where else, other than a quiz, could you learn such an ultimately useless but (in my view) interesting and random fact?
2. Pub quizzes are COMPETITIVE.
They really are. Having taken part in my fair share of quizzes down the years, I can personally vouch for this fact. I wouldn’t describe myself as a competitive person – far from it! – in ‘normal’ life, but when it comes to quizzes, I regress to an almost childlike state, where I want to WIN. I want my team to beat every other team. I want my team to be the best – in this case, the most knowledgeable. I am willing to put my brain through every means of cerebral torture necessary to drag that scrap of information that I read in a newspaper on a cold Monday morning in 1994 out of the darkest, deepest recesses of my mind, into my conscious mind, out of my mouth (quietly, so no other team nearby hears it) and onto the answer sheet in a proud ‘Eureka!’ moment. Just to get that one extra point. The one extra point that could make all the difference between winning the quiz and finishing second (which, for competitive quizgoers, is basically the same as finishing last). Of course, sometimes you have to concede that you just don’t know the answer. In fact, no-one on your team does. When this happens, you just have to swallow your pride and try to remember the answer when you hear it. There is a reasonable chance that that very same question may crop up again in another quiz some time in the future. Next time though, of course, you’ll know the answer to that question…IF you can remember the answer, that is! (If you can’t, then you’ll say something along the lines of ‘I KNOW that one…I’ve heard it before…drat, I STILL can’t remember the answer…and the cycle repeats.)
3. Pub quizzes are FRIENDLY.
For all the competitiveness that abounds, there is still plenty of camaraderie between teams. In all my time running pub quizzes, I’ve never seen any fights break out, or any major unpleasantness. This is the way it should be. You can get injured playing football, rugby, cricket, or other competitive team sports, but the only injury I’ve noticed among my quizgoers is a bruised ego when one team member is SURE that he/she knows the answer, proudly writes it down while dismissing / overruling all other answers, and gets the answer wrong, leading to disappointed stares and head shaking from his/her team-mates. But this is normally short-lived. Anyway, I’ve digressed again…teams, in general, are on good terms with each other. They applaud each other’s efforts when I read out the scores at the end of the quiz. They often chat to each other before and after the quiz, and during the breaks. Which brings me on to…
4. Pub quizzes are a SOCIABLE activity.
They get people to TALK to each other. In my opinion, in this digital age, people don’t talk enough these days. At the risk of using a cliché, to quote an old BT advert, ‘it’s good to talk’. Pub quizzes pretty much enforce this. They encourage discussion (unless someone decides to go rogue – see point 3) between team members. And, by discussion, I of course mean light-hearted arguments, where each team member does his/her level best to convince the other team members that THEIR answer is right, and should therefore be the team’s official answer to the question at hand. In between questions, of course, you can talk about ‘normal’ things like the state of the British weather, what you had for dinner, how many Jägerbombs can you drink before you pass out…that kind of thing. This is what you want to happen when you’re hosting a pub quiz – conversation, light-hearted debate and friendly banter, all in a sociable pub setting accompanied with alcoholic (or, for those who are driving, non-alcoholic!) drinks. What’s not to like, eh? And finally…
5. You can win MONEY or other PRIZES at a pub quiz.
Yes, I had to mention this at some point. For many teams, as I said before, simply winning the quiz is enough. They have shown themselves to be the most knowledgeable team, and the buck stops there. (Whoops, an accidental money-related pun!) But for others, simply being the best isn’t enough. They want something to show for it. And that’s where the self-styled ‘root of all evil’ comes in. Money. Money, money, money…it’s always nice to win money. At my quizzes, there are always at least THREE chances to win a cash prize. Pub quizzes can be good for your pocket as well as your brain! Although I would say that, for the vast majority of teams, it’s the fun and interest of taking part in the quiz that counts, and any financial gain is merely a bonus, the icing on the quiz cake. But, I’ll say it again…it’s always nice to win money, regardless of how or why. It’s just human nature. All those answers you somehow managed to retrieve from the back of your brain, all that frantic scribbling, all those lucky guesses that paid off…it’s all worth it when your team wins the quiz and wins the prize money. You’ve had a great time, you feel elated, and you can buy some free drinks to celebrate. Happy days! And it all starts over again at next week’s quiz – can you win again and successfully defend your crown as the best quiz team in the pub? Time will tell…
Thanks for taking the time to read this (my first ever quiz blog!)…hopefully you found it interesting, possibly even insightful! I will keep blogging about all things quiz on this website…so, until next time, stay quizzical!