Trivia pursuit: Players ‘flex their brain muscles’ at local bars

If you’re a person whose brain is stuffed with otherwise useless knowledge, you might as well use it.

And if you’re a bar owner whose business is full of otherwise empty chairs, you might as well fill them.

Bar trivia, an increasingly popular weeknight pastime in bars and restaurants across Wichita, is the answer in both cases, local fans and organizers say.

The live games are put on Monday through Thursday nights in local establishments that are looking for ways to draw customers on typically dead nights. Some are informal games put together by the businesses themselves. Others are sophisticated products of national companies, which are hired by the bars to provide the hosts, questions and prizes.

A typical trivia night draws 20 to 30 people – teams of four or more friends who gather, linger and order food and drinks throughout the evening. Some events draw even bigger crowds. Old Chicago at 2240 N. Tyler Road puts on a Tuesday night trivia game that sometimes gets as many as 100 players. AJ’s at the Alley at 11413 E. 13th St. often draws between 60 and 80 people to its Thursday night games.

Drew Cote is the area manager for a company called Challenge Entertainment, which puts on about 550 bar trivia shows all over the country. He’s in charge of Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, and he’s also in charge of the five weekly trivia games that Challenge organizes in Wichita. (The Old Chicago West and AJ’s at the Alley games are his.)

Bars hire Challenge to put on the games, and Cote finds hosts, who work as independent contractors and are provided questions put together by the company’s thorough research department.

“Our trivia show is designed to drive business, to not only bring in a crowd but also to keep the crowd they have there longer so they’ll eat and drink longer,” Cote said.

The game is called a show, Cote said, because the host also works as an entertainer, spinning music as the teams deliberate their answers. Teams can be any size, he said, although most have six or eight members. It doesn’t cost anything to join in.

The host reads questions from a variety of categories – movies, sports, television, presidents, geography, U.S. cities and more. Teams must agree on an answer and how many points they want to wager on that answer, then submit it to the host. It’s the host’s job to make sure everyone is playing fair and keeping their cellphones put away.

The teams with the most points at the end of the show win gift cards to the restaurant or bar ranging from $10 to $50. They also have a chance to compete in Challenge’s regional and national competitions, where prizes grow significantly.

“Our games really cut across a wide demographic. I’ll have teenagers playing. I’ll have millennials. I’ll have Generation X. I’ve got a show where three teams of senior citizens go every week,” Cote said. “Sometimes it’s guys trying to impress ladies with their crazy knowledge. Sometimes, it’s people who just don’t care and trivia is their thing and that’s what they do. Some will play two or three shows a week with different teams.”

A recent Wednesday night trivia game at Barleycorn’s drew about 25 people, split up into six teams. Throughout the evening, only two or three non-trivia players wandered into the bar.

When 7 p.m. arrived, the bartender turned the music off, and trivia host Linda Michael passed out small dry-erase boards and explained the rules: There would be three rounds of questions, 10 questions each. The first-round questions would be worth five points, 10 in the second round and 15 in the third. There also would be a “final Jeopardy”-style question, where teams could wager points.

At one table were friends Spencer Herrmann, Erin Riley and Michael Baughman. The trio, along with a few other friends, have been meeting at Barleycorn’s for trivia night every Wednesday for the last four or five months. They sip whiskey and pool their knowledge – Herrmann’s a math whiz, Riley knows pop culture and literature, Baughman is an art and history expert – to try to win the final prize of $25.

But the money isn’t the goal.

“We want to prove our otherwise useless knowledge,” Herrmann said. “Isn’t that what trivia means?”

Michael, who has been hosting trivia games around town for 10 years, reads the first question into her microphone.

“What team did the Shockers lose to in the Missouri Valley Tournament?”

The teams huddle together and whisper. They scribble answers onto the dry-erase board, then one member from each team approaches Michael’s table.

“Yes,” she says to one.

“No, sorry,” to the next.

Once all the teams have answered, she reveals the correct response – The University of Northern Iowa.

Michael comes up with her own trivia questions, curating them from various television game shows or from Internet searches, and some are much harder than others.

“What are the guidelines for doctors called?”

“What’s the name of the mad scientist played by Tim Curry in ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show?’ ”

“How many states border Tennessee?”

“In what 1991 movie did Julia Roberts play the fairy Tinkerbell?”

“In ‘Rainman,’ where does Dustin Hoffman’s character like to buy his underwear?”

“How long is the index finger on the Statue of Liberty?”

That question elicits groans.

“Where does this come from?” one teammate shouts out, incredulous.

“Yeah, who even measures that?” adds another.

“What unit of measurement?” someone else asks.

Feet, Michael replies, and eventually reveals the answer – eight.

Michael is like a teacher heading a classroom as she leads the trivia game. She playfully chides players, tries to hush them up, reminds them they’re almost out of time to answer.

When Herrmann rushes to the front with an answer to a question his team instantly knew – what two words combine to form the name Pokemon? – the team one table over chides him.

“Nerds!” they shout at Herrmann’s team, who knew the answer was pocket monsters.

It’s normal banter, Riley said. The same players show up each week, so they all know each other. And they all take turns winning first place.

“There’s kind of a camaraderie around the room,” she said. “We tease each other and yell at each other.”

Alex Thomas, who along with some partners bought Barleycorn’s in early 2015, said trivia is a good fit, even though the bar has become known more as a live music venue.

The previous Barleycorn’s owner offered it for years, and it draws its own crowd. Thomas said he likes filling otherwise empty hours with people who want to “flex their brain muscles.”

“It’s just another way to fill your early day parts. You’re open, so you might as well have some activities and some fun games,” he said. “It’s a proven model.”

This story was originally published March 18, 2016 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Trivia pursuit: Players ‘flex their brain muscles’ at local bars."