Trivia Events are for Nerds (And Other Misconceptions)

If you live in New York City like me, you may have noticed a sharp spike in the number of trivia nights being offered at bars in your neighborhood- I’m told this trend has been reported in other US major cities as well over the past year or two. This likely has to do with an increased awareness and interest in trivia events, as well as an effort by bar owners to draw in patrons during a difficult economy. If you pay close attention to how these bars market their trivia nights, you’ll notice that they try and differentiate themselves from one another in interesting ways: happy hour prices, “themed” trivia nights, rotating hosts etc.

One common approach I’ve noticed is the attempt to tap into the market of “nerds.”

You can see evidence of this all over, from pub quiz flyers to bar Eblasts to listings in local media: “Geek Out at Bar X Trivia Night!” “Grab Your Pocket Protector for Pub Quiz at Y!” The implication of this kind of marketing – presumably in an effort to drum up a crowd –  is clearly that trivia nights are for dorks.

That’s not what I think.

Each and every event my company does – be it a corporate team building event, pub quiz or charity fundraiser – has the same overall goal in the end: make people have fun. I’m of the belief that EVERYONE loves to have fun; I also believe that you don’t need to be a self-defined nerd in order to have fun at a trivia night.

Think about it: by setting “geekiness” as a base requirement to attend your event, you are prioritizing intelligence over fun. To follow up on that promise, the quiz host will then have to ask questions that are that much harder (you can’t tap into the audience’s “inner nerd” if the questions are too easy, can you?) Yes, it’s true that people want to show off how smart they are, and want to momentarily shine when they remember some arcane factoid that nobody else knows. However, what about all those people in attendance who don’t define themselves as “nerds” – a moniker with obvious negative implications – and just want to have a good time? Not only do they feel out of place, but if they don’t know the answers to hard questions while all the “nerds” do, they feel like idiots- and nobody likes to feel like an idiot.

Let’s also not forget an obvious result of marketing your event towards “nerdy” people who want to “get their geek on” at a trivia event: you’re going to wind up with a lot of nerds. Is that a bad thing? Of course not- if that’s what you want to define your event as. For me, I want all of my events to be defined as FUN and COOL; as such, I take the approach that people want to have FUN, and feel COOL; I don’t know anyone who feels cool calling themselves a nerd, let alone being called one. When participants get the questions right at a TrivWorks event, they are AWESOME, and the host lets them know it! If they don’t know the answers, though, they are NOT stupid- they just don’t know the answer. Sometimes, they’re even cooler if they DON’T know the answer: Q) Which floors are the observation decks on the Empire State Building? A) 86^th & 102^nd floors. Cool Answer? “I don’t know- real New Yorkers have never been to the Empire State Building.”

I never, ever mention words like “nerd,” “geek “ or “dork” when describing my trivia events, and certainly would never refer to my audience as such. You may disagree completely, and think that nerds are the perfect way to classify people who enjoy trivia events; however, THIS nerd thinks otherwise.

What’s your take on defining trivia events as “for nerds?”