Why Do People Love Trivia Events?
It’s a new year, and I’m really exited to be blogging regularly again—one of the things I told myself I’d do in 2025 is to get back on the writing horse, which I didn’t do as much in 2024 as I’d have liked…but that ends now!
To kick things off, I thought I’d start with a big question: what is it about trivia events that people enjoy so much? I’ve been doing what I do for almost 20 years. I started hosting bar quiz nights in Manhattan and Brooklyn in 2006, then when the economic crisis hit I started TrivWorks in 2009 as a side businesses, taking it full-time in 2011. I see it firsthand, and by now it’s pretty much a given – but I do sometimes wonder: what is it about these gigs that people respond so positively to?
Let’s take a look at a few of the reasons I’ve observed as an expert in this decidedly niche area of corporate entertainment and team building:
Team Trivia is Fun
I’m putting this up at the top, because ultimately I think this is what it’s all about. People want to have a good time at these events; they don’t want be bored, or think the activity is lame, or feel like they’ve being forced to interact with their coworkers in a cheesy way. For anyone who’s been to one of these events, be it a local bar trivia night or a full-blown office trivia party, you know it’s a blast – it just is! People are laughing and cheering, there’s good-natured taunting and heckling, folks are socializing – it’s genuinely a great time, which is why people enjoy doing it.
Trivia Events are Competitive
First and foremost, this is a competitive activity – and people love competition. Even those who don’t readily identify themselves as competitive can still admit to enjoying a healthy contest of brainpower, memory and even negotiation skills among their own team members while determining which answer to write down. More than just playing a game, this is something that brings out a deep, almost primal reaction from folks of all types, be they in sales or IT, marketing or accounting. You put people on a team together and tell them they have a chance to “win,” and you’ll be blown away by what happens. In a word, it’s exciting!
People Like to Feel Smart
One thing that separates these events from say, mixology or bowling or trust falls is that people have an opportunity to show off their smarts. Especially high-performing groups of professionals, summer interns from top-tier universities or senior-level executives, people who are smart like to have an opportunity to showcase that.
People Really Love Pop Culture
I tend to lean a lot into pop culture when writing material for my events: TV & movies, music, current events, celebrity news, that sort of thing. Why? Because people enjoy it! It’s also what they consume, either actively or passively – they may not even realize how much pop culture they absorb on any given day just by opening their smartphones or flipping on the TV. For a professional trivia host like me, this is gold: even if people don’t know each other well (or at all), they do have these shared connections already, which are put on display at these events. Also, besides the water cooler or at lunch, where else can those in a professional environment get a chance to put all that “useless” pop culture knowledge to use?
To Wrap Up
There are of course many other explanations for why people love to participate in trivia events, corporate or otherwise. But to my mind these are the main reasons why folks have such a great time with it, why they tell me again and again how much fun their groups had, and why they keep bringing me back to lead their programs year after year. I still see the same level of enthusiasm and laughter at my corporate gigs today as I did in those early days in the bars 20 years ago – and I don’t expect that to change any time soon!
To see if trivia might be a good fit for your upcoming function, visit Is TrivWorks Right for YOUR Corporate Event? Let’s Find Out!