My First Trivia Night
The first and only time I’ve ever gone to a trivia night was when I worked at the preschool. It was for a fundraiser for the school district and it was… fun, but not at all what I had expected.
Since it was a fundraiser, mulligans were involved. If you got an answer wrong, you could buy a mulligan and automatically get the answer right. The team that won bought about 20 of these and that was the reason they won. Granted, I understand it was to raise money, but it was totally one-sided and not at all fair.
The trivia was random facts. There were no real categories, just random questions. I knew one answer throughout the night. That was it. Not to mention, the host speed-read the questions out loud. There was no multiple choice and no visuals. Needless to say, I tuned him out a lot and just focused on eating – which we had to bring our own food.
After that, I never really got why people enjoyed trivia night. Sure, it was just one experience, but I felt kind of dumb at the end of the night.
Practice The Night Before
A few weeks ago, my friend’s friend discovered a Harry Potter trivia night at a bookstore in the city through an ad on Facebook. Teams were allowed to go up to six so we got a group together: myself, Kris, our friend, her friend, her sister, and our other friend. Kris ended up not being able to make it, so our friend’s husband joined us. The one who discovered the trivia backed out so our friend’s sister invited her friend. (I love how we have substitutes for friends.)
Anyway, we all got together the night before to practice. Kris joined us and she found a random list of Harry Potter trivia online. She read some questions and our friend’s husband knew all the answers. Like, obscure details that are in the books but we probably didn’t need to know. Apparently, he listens to the series on audio every year and practically has them memorized. Needless to say, we were thankful he was able to join the team.
We pigged out on chips and dip, salsa and cheese, and other goodies while we “practiced” for about an hour. Then we ended up playing the card game Uno for about three hours. It was a good night. Then, it was onto trivia the following night.
The Bookstore Cafe
The trivia was in a bookstore cafe. It was a cute place and if it wasn’t in the city (which is a pain to drive into – I’m too chicken and overwhelmed to do it). When walking into the bookstore, it’s just books upon books. There is a bar and cafe area and upstairs was the function hall, which was smaller than I thought it would be. Then again, it was a sold-out event and we were packed like sardines to fit everyone in. But it was comfortable enough at the same time.
Unlike the last trivia night I went to, there was a large TV screen that had the questions pop up as they were asked. Plus, they were all multiple choice which was nice. A few of my friends ordered drinks while I got a butterbeer and my usual soda water. My friend and I shared spicy fries which were really good. The place had a large menu from breakfast to dessert and it was overwhelming. There was a lot going on so it was nice to just pick at stuff instead of ordering a meal.
Trivia lasted about an hour and a half. There were six rounds, each having five questions for a total of 30 questions. All the rounds were multiple choice on the TV screen except for the fifth round, which had pictures of the chapters from different books. Of course, the paper said, “write the chapter title of each picture.” If you’ve read the Harry Potter series, you know each chapter has a small picture along with the title. We completely guessed because who remembers the exact chapter titles?
When they went over the answers, they wrote the book titles. The directions were wrong and every team got them all wrong, so they automatically gave every team the five points. If we knew to write the book titles, we totally would have gotten them right anyway.
Aside from that, we only got three questions wrong out of 30 landing us in first place. We got a $35 gift card to the bookstore, which we gave to our friend’s husband because he was the one who knew all the answers for us. We won with 27 out of 30 points, the team that came in second had 25 out of 30 points. So we got the lead by two.
Overall, it was a great night. We had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. Plus, I know some Harry Potter facts now… though some might be considered useless information, that’s okay. I can still say I learned something.
Have you gone to trivia nights before? Have they been themed like Harry Potter? Let me know in the comments below. Good luck! If you liked this post, please share it around!
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