Saturday 30 July 2022

Summer Heat Wave Update

It's been awhile since an update! Mostly since I haven't been heading out to quizzes much this summer, but I'll be back come fall, I hope! Made some updates to the list, including:

  • Added the Regal Beagle
  • Updated the IQ2000 quizzes
  • Updated the Vancouver Trivia party nights 
  • Added some Kaboom Atomic Nights
Not a complete changelist, but close enough! Stay cool out there, and have a good time at trivia!

Thursday 18 November 2021

Quizzing in a New Age

 Well! I hope everyone is safe and hopefully as dry as possible in the aftermath of these awful floods. I've finally gotten around to updating the lists, now that indoor dining and trivia nights are a lot more normalized. I haven't started going out to them yet, but we probably will head to one fairly soon. In this latest update

  • added 12 Kings
  • subtracted the Firefighters
  • Think Again Trivia is off, because I can't find any information on them online! Give me a shout out if you are still running the quiz, folks!
  • A lot more from IQ2000
  • A lot more from Vancouver Trivia Party
  • Some more out of town stuff
Let's see if I can't do better at keeping this up to date! And you, stay safe out there!

Monday 6 July 2020

Quizzing, Phase Three

As many of you are no doubt aware, BC has entered phase three of the province's restart plan, which means restaurants are open, and with that, some pub quizzes have started back up as well. I'm sure everyone has their own opinions on whether it is a great idea to spend upwards of two hours in a bar or restaurant and trust to them to have your health and hygiene in mind. I myself am probably not going to be going to a restaurant anytime soon. That said, a number of quizzes are running again! Here's a few of the ones that I know of.

  • Nice Guys Trivia is running trivia at the Lamplighter, Tuesdays at 7.
  • IQ2000 is running trivia out of (at least) Colony Granville, Wednesday at 8.
  • Vancouver Trivia Party is running several in the suburbs, and at Hastings Mill Tuesdays at 6:30
  • Quizzing With Carin is back at the Junction and Princeton, Mondays and Wednesdays

I'm sure there are others out there too, but I haven't seen them. IQ2000 is running a weekly online quiz on twitch, and Think Again Trivia (aka Hail Mary's) is doing theirs live once a month, on the last Thursday. Also, if quizzing from home is more your style, this google doc collects them from all around the world. Stay safe!




Thursday 23 April 2020

Quiz in the time of lockdown

Hey all! I hope that you and yours are all healthy and safe. A lot of people are probably pretty bored right now, so I thought I'd post some options for online quizzes by Vancouver trivia hosts. It's a bit of a different vibe, but at least you're still getting questions asked of you. Without further ado:

  • IQ2000 runs two quizzes a week on Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/iq2k/. Monday and Wednesday at 8. They are attracting a humungous number of teams, so it is a good place to flex your mettle. Answers are submitted via a google form.
  • Vancouver Trivia Party posts quizzes online here - https://www.vancouvertriviaparty.com/this-week-s-free-quiz. They also host live quizzes on their facebook page, but I'm not sure of the cadence. 
  • Think Again Trivia (of Hail Mary's) continues their monthly trivia night using Zoom, details found on their instagram.
  • The Big Fat Query (of The Fountainhead) posts sets of questions and answers every Sunday evening, on their facebook page. It's mostly for fun, not so much for competition.
As always, shout out if you know of more!

Wednesday 18 December 2019

State of the Union, 2019

Two posts? In one year? What have you done to deserve this, you might ask. Fear not, for I will fill you in presently.

I'd like to begin by saying sorry for letting The Master List get so stagnant. I've made some attempts to correct that, and all the Vancouver proper quizzes are up to date. Gone are the quizzes long cancelled, and the bars long closed. One of them, Displace Hashery, had a new restaurant open AND close in the space in the intervening time. Yeesh. I've done my best to confirm that these bars still have quizzes, and that the times are up to date. Some bars - namely Koerner's, Red Racer Taphouse, and the Bottleneck - I could not confirm that there was a quiz there one way or another. There was one, but their social media and events pages no longer mention it, so I scrubbed them from the list. I also took off any of the music bingo nights from the list. I can't imagine that many people come here for that.

So then, why now? Simply put, I've been hearing a lot of quiz companies advertise they are the "best trivia night in town" or some such similar thing. Hearing this I thought, "I wonder if this brag is right?" So I've been thinking about what makes a quiz a good quiz and what, truly, is the best quiz night in town. In 2020 I'm hoping to attend the various quizzes and see what they do well, and what they do poorly, and see if I can come to some conclusions. If this project ends up making any sense at all, I'll post my findings here.

Also, I might update the way the reviews are presented on the Master List. By my count there are 51 different regular quiz nights in town, and around 14 different hosts / companies. I'm not sure a different review for each of the bars that run the same show really make all that much sense, so maybe a change is in order. The old reviews are almost all pretty stale, anyways.

Anyways, that's what's up! Enjoy the end of the year, everyone!

Saturday 6 April 2019

Aunt Leah's Charity Quiz

Though the Master List has been kept up to date, it's been awhile since I've posted here! Time to burst out of that slumber with a little bit of quiz news, driven by a good cause! Aunt Leah's Place is running their 8th Annual Trivia and Silent Auction, with all funds being used to support youth from foster care and moms at risk of losing custody of their children. It's Saturday, April 27th, with doors at 7:00. Teams of 6-8 people, tickets are $35 per person. The event is being held at St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Centre at Ash and 15th. More information can be found on their website, or on their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2501367563239930/

Tuesday 20 March 2018

The Milltown Bar & Grill

Where: The Milltown Bar & Grill - 9191 Bentley Street

When: 8:30, Thursdays

Web Presence: Clues and hints for the upcoming week can be found on their facebook page.

Team Info: Up to six people. Got more? Split into two teams!

Prizes: There's a 40 dollar gift certificate (redeemable future weeks only, alas), with a random prize for second-to-last place as well. Copious amounts of shots to be won in-between the rounds on bonus questions as well.

Format: Four rounds, twelve questions. Questions can be worth any number of points. There's also arbitrary enthusiasm points to be won as well.

Food and Drink: Good burgers, and tasty pizza to be had. The menu is pretty extensive, so chances are good you'll find something to eat. It's burger night on Thursdays, which means carnivores get a pretty sweet deal on a burger and a beer. Pretty straightforward beer selection, but $5.25 Pale Ales and $6 boozy Arnold Palmers are a good game day specials.

The Milltown Bar and Grill is one of the few quizzes in Vancouver that is located on an island. I'm trying to rack my brains to think if there is one on Granville Island, but I'm not sure there is - so I guess that we can safely say that this is the only trivia night you'll find on an island. It is also the only quiz in Vancouver that is in Richmond.

Wait, what? The Milltown is on Richmond Island, a tiny island just North of Vancouver International Airport, and only accessible through Marpole. De jure Richmond, de facto Vancouver. It has great views of the flightpath, and if you happen to have a boat, you'll have few problems docking at the nearby marina. I assume. I don't have a boat. For such a far-flung locale, the bar is cozy, warm, and quite full. Most of the tables were playing trivia, so it is safe to say the community here is doing quite well. The food is good, and the staff are super friendly.

But, how's the quiz? I imagine that is why you are here. In a Vancouver where quiz companies are extending their reach across multiple bars, it is refreshing to find a new quiz that has a personal touch, and isn't another franchise of a larger concern. It's four rounds of homespun questions, with plenty of sports, and plenty of multiple point questions. There's a fair share of true or false, and the tried and true maxim of "pick whichever answer seems less likely" held up pretty well here. Is 90 mile beach actually 90 miles? Of course not! There was a fair number of difficult questions (the Welsh name of the official residence of the Prime Minister?), but mixed in a few softballs that could be answered by looking at one of the many televisions (Who was playing in the Thursday Night Football game).

In a rarity for quizzes about town, there was no music round. However, if you're an extroverted type, there were ample opportunities to get bonus points by going up and singing a song during our theme round on Pop Princesses. Whether or not you got any points, and how many you got, appeared fairly arbitrary, but that's how it goes sometimes. The theme round, I might add, is nominated and voted on by quizzers the previous week, which I think is a pretty cool idea. The "vote via hooting and hollering" is something I find a bit tiresome, especially as the night stretches on, but the crowd digs it here. There was also a "Win Two Shots" minigame at the end of each round - the quizmaster would load up imdb and read out movies until one of the gathered people submitted the actor that had a role in all of them. Ties are broken in a fun manner - one representative from each team goes up, and goes had to head trying to name more of something (the five largest buildings in Vancouver, the elements that start with the letter 'A'), which I think is a great tiebreak.

It was a fun night, though a late 8:30 start can make getting back a little tricky if you don't live in South Granville, or drive. There is a shuttle service available for patrons who have four or more drinks, but we didn't quite reach the cutoff there. Fortunately, airport proximity mean cabs are easy to come by. It's certainly a quiz I will come back to, but likely in the summer, when the walk down the causeway to the bar is warmer, and I can watch some planes landing.

Coming in for landing: A bit tricky to get to, but a fun quiz in a cozy atmosphere.