The Modern Pub Quiz: Sorting the Good from the Bad and the Ugly
The history of the “pub quiz” dates back to 1970 when a UK company called Burns and Porter created one as a means of getting punters in on quieter nights. Some say its inspiration was a growing trend of televisions finding places in pubs. The airing of gameshows would inspire barstool intellectuals to shout out the answers. That quickly evolved into an organic competition of who could get said answer out first.
Nowadays the modern pub quiz is a mainstay in neighbourhood “watering-holes” around the world. They are hugely successful in packing bars with trivia fans eager to show their big brain, enjoy the week of bragging rights to follow and often in raising money for a multitude of charities.
So, here in 2022, what is it that makes for a good pub quiz? How do you separate the good ones from the bad and truly ugly? We’ve quantified all of that for you below.
The Quizmasters
A good quizmaster rises to the occasion when it’s needed most, much as good open mic hosts do. You can read more about that here. And the number one mark of a good quiz master is their ruling on the dreaded disputed answer. The quizmaster has to admit when he/she is not correct or when several different answers should be allowed. Players can get very upset and get into the Quizmaster’s ear, deeper than the Ceti eel larva put into Lieutenant Chekov’s ear scene in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
Veteran quizmaster, Shaun Holroyd of Tuesday Night Trivia at Botanico Beer and Wine Garden is a pro at handling these folks. He explains, “This happens quite often these days, especially when everyone has a smartphone in their pocket. After the answers are read out, phones come out to double check my answers! I am happy to admit I can be wrong sometimes. So, if I am wrong, I correct myself and give points where needed. But I also make the final call on what is accepted or not.”
A bad quizmaster won’t budge and will fall back on the industry standard rule that, the answer in the quiz is the answer…period, with no exceptions. These types usually wear horn-rimmed glasses and are generally insufferably pleased with themselves when they read out the answers. They live to bathe in the warmth of stumping players with questions about 6th century authors. Which is not really cool given that people are just trying to have a laugh and raise some money for charity.
As for the ugly variety? They are usually super drunk and take great joy in telling anyone disputing their authority to piss off. This lot love to battle and value wielding their power so deeply they are willing to damage long standing friendships.
The Questions and Answers
A good quiz will be balanced for the audience. If there are 50% Brits and Aussies, 30% Americans and 20% Canadians, the quiz should reflect that to a good degree. Except for Canadian history because there isn’t any really (Canadian editor’s note…sorry, but bite me).
When presenting the answers, a good pub quiz will have those up on a screen or printed out so that everyone can see them clearly. They should also contain screen grabs from credible websites that prove the validity of the answer. This nips most disputes in the bud.
A good pub quiz will also ask questions that have only one exact answer. Questions that can have many answers are a recipe for Captain Gin Breath venting in your face for 20 minutes because the question was, “Who is the fifth Beatle?” That list could include, and quite arguably so, Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, George Martin, Billy Preston and a host of others, as well as more disputable answers like Murray the K and Jimmy Nichol (look them up).
Bad quizzes incorporate question that are based in heresy, opinions or estimations. This causes great problems. The real “fun” starts when the Quizmaster reveals the answers to these questions and the fireworks begin!
The questions and answers to an ugly pub quiz aren’t so much about the validity or accuracy of the Q&A. They are more often that the questions and answers are so incredibly boring that you need to load up on three of four more Jack and Cokes to medicate yourself from the pain. That’s a sure sign that the quizmaster is a lazy bastard given to cutting and pasting from the lamest Q&A’s known to mankind.
The Quizzers
A good pub quiz will have super positive, fun, vocal players whose main purpose in playing is to have a friendly rivalry complete with lighthearted banter to raise some money for a charity. The quizzers will also be dressed in clean clothes and smell fresh.
A bad quiz will be populated with overly serious, pedantic nerds obsessed with pointless facts and useless knowledge all to willing to stink up a quiz with complaints and extreme sad faces when decisions don’t go their way. These folks are usually decked out in singlets and thongs and you can smell them two meters away.
The ugly quiz typically has three or more foul mouthed quizzers. They think they are smart and funny but are actually just offensive. To the point that they manage to offend level headed, decent folk who suddenly feel the need to stand up and confront them. Never good and always a buzz wrecker that’s bad for business.
The Audio/Visual
A good pub quiz will have a sound system that can clearly project the voice of the quizmaster above the din of chatting quizzers and of course Tammi, who’s really drunk and ranting on and on about being cheated 1000 Riels by a Tuk Tuk driver. The more advanced setups will have a large tv or projector that makes it easy for everyone to see clearly. This matters greatly during picture rounds where clarity is a must.
Our Sunday night charity pub quiz at Star Bar in Siem Reap prides itself on following those guidelines. The quiz is shown on a massive four-meter by three-meter, high definition, LED screen. Every week we see people walk into the bar, notice the screen and start smiling. Then they look up, craning to spot the projector. When they don’t see one, they walk up onto the stage and look behind the screen, stopping only when the penny drops to yell to their friends, ‘It’s an actual screen, not a projector!’ It’s a great tool for our pub quiz because you can be all the way in the back of the quiz and still see everything clearly.
We also incorporates audio into our quiz night such as the music round which is called “Name the Artist.” Twenty random songs are played and each team has a wireless buzzer in front of them. The first one to buzz in and guess the artist correctly wins. The first two seconds of a song can be the most recognizable part, so clarity from the get go is a must.
A bad pub quiz usually has a small screen that isn’t big enough for the room and is hard to see. Also, the sound will be lacking and hard to hear because it’s the same 12-year-old system they use for Karaoke on Monday nights and the reverb is stuck on level 9.
An ugly quiz often doesn’t have screens at all. Not having TV’s or a screen isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it’s done right. But when the pictures on the paper quiz are so small you can hardly tell if it’s a picture of JFK or Queen Elizabeth, well that’s not good at all is it?
Plus, since teams are often formed by people that don’t know each other? Would you really want to huddle around a little quiz paper that close to “Justin” who is extremely vague about where he is from, freaks out if you take a picture of him and tells everyone he’s a millionaire as he throws back his thirteenth 50 cent Anchor draft?” Expect the ugly pub quiz sound system to be, well…probably nonexistent and complete with a quizmaster thoroughly confusing by nature of his Glasgow accent being further thickened by seven draft beers and four shots of Jägermeister.
The attitude going in
A good way to mentally prepare yourself for attending a pub quiz, no matter if it’s a good, bad or ugly one, is to keep one thing in mind. Poor kids in the village that need school supplies or homeless veterans that need a roof over their heads could care less if you got the answer correct to, “What animal would you turn into if you were suffering from lycanthropy?” (A: Werewolf). They just want school supplies and a safe place to sleep. So how about using that big brain of yours for less whinging and more donating? In the end we all want the charity attached to a good pub quiz to be the big winners, right?
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Author: Reece Ferguson
Reece is a South-East Asia based writer and journalist that originally hails from Northern Ireland. He has previously written for Philippines Lifestyle News, as well as for our previous publication Khmer Nights.
