April Is The Quizzest Month

Or maybe I should have gone with "breeding/Lilacs out of the dead land, quizzing/Memory and desire" but I thought perhaps lines 2-3 of The Waste Land are not quite so iconic. Anyways! I've got some quiz news for you, recounted here in roughly the order it came to me.

Once again, the Friends of the Terry Fox Library are hosting another literary quiz night. It's on Saturday, April 8th, at the Terry Fox Library in Port Coquitlam. Tickets are 20 bucks apiece.

There's a quiz at the Dubh Linh Gate on Main Street on Wednesdays now. Cool! Starts at 7.

Debbie, aka the Quizmistress, has moved her quiz at the Fringe to Tuesday Nights, and is starting up a new quiz on Monday's at Red Card, located in the Moda Hotel downtown. It's the same lucky key trivia she has always run, with a $50 gift certificate going to the winners. Should be fun!

Sadly, Darby's will be changing hosts yet again, and swapping the ever popular Carin for the quiz stylings of the IQ 2000 quiz company. Hopefully Carin pops up again at a new location. I'll keep you posted! Quiz at Darby's will change format, but should still be the same time.

Speaking of IQ 2000, they are making their first attempt at a grand trivia even in the style of Geek Bowl, with "The BIGGEST trivia event in history" [citation needed]. IQ Mania will be on Saturday July 8th at the Biltmore Cabaret, and tickets are about 20 bucks a person after ticketfly takes their cut. Teams are of 7 people, and top prize is rumored to be around 500 dollars. I'd make sure to get your tickets early. I've got mine!

 Shantih    shantih    shantih

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen

It was the end of an era in Vancouver quizzing last week, as Katie ran her last quiz at Darby's on Thursday. Katie had been a mainstay of the Vancouver quiz scene for the last five years, running over 200 quizzes from her base at Fourth and MacDonald in Kits. I would take in Katie's quizzes frequently, and it was always a great time. She had an excellent sense of topic and knew her crowd well. The quiz at Darby's was a tightly-run ship, with well-researched questions, practised delivery, and impeccable promptness. There's no wondering why Quiz night at Darby's had such a large and dedicated following, and easily the best competition of any quiz night in town.

So, thanks for all the great quizzes, Katie! It was truly a pleasure. I hope that you inspire some bored young person to start Prince Rupert Pub Quiz dot com.

Will Never Lead Me Anywhere But Here

While we're all reeling over the breakup of Canadian indie darlings The Weakerthans, I figure I may as well slip in some quiz news, good and bad:

• Quiz at the Bottleneck is on hiatus until September
• Yagger's Downtown is starting to fill up, so show up early for quiz if you want to grab a spot
• Quiz at Darby's will continue, but longtime host Katie will only host two more quizzes (Tomorrow and July 23). If you want to stop in and bid farewell, you'd better do it now. I know I'll be there. Look for the enormous team split in two if you want to say hi. 

Shout out to some astute readers who shot me this information a week ago, I'm sorry it took me so long to update the site.

Darby's now running monthly league competition

Darby's pub has introduced a new competition that adds an extra level of excitement to their already excellent product.

Throughout November, the results of each weekly quiz will also count towards a monthly leader board; total points scored carry over from week to week, and the team who tally the most at the end of the month win a spectacular prize pack including Steamworks beer and branded glassware, a Darby's gift certificate, custom printed winners' t-shirts with the team name screened on it, and a grand prize yet to be determined. (The prize has been awarded once already, and it was Whitecaps tickets, so expect something equally big).

Quizmaster Katie plans to repeat the Monthly Cup at least through the winter, and perhaps on indefinitely thereafter. As if you needed another reason to go.

This columnist's only complaint is that I keep declaring this or that pub to have the best prizes in the city, and then another goes one better and makes a liar of me. Truly are we living in a golden age of Vancouver bar trivia!

Darby’s runs every Thursday at the corner of 4th Avenue and Macdonald.

Darby's

Heads up, this quiz is no longer being run by Katie, as the article will try and tell you. Most of the vitals (start time, address, day of week) remain the same, but the format of the quiz might vary a bit. 

Where: Darby's Pub, 2001 MacDonald Street

When: 7PM Thursday, Every week

Web Presence: Facebook page

Registration Fee: Gratuit

Team Info: 7 Brains per table

Prizes: Top team gets a pitcher of beer, AND a reserved table at the next week's quiz - the real prize

Format: 60 questions, split into 2 halves, with 3 10-question rounds in each. Expect to see a themed round, a picture round, and a matching round, followed by another themed round, another picture round, and ending with the music round.

Food and Drink: Food is pretty good, and the beer selection is easily the best of any of the places I've been to a quiz. It will probably stay that way, unless the Alibi Room starts a quiz.

This quiz has been going for a number of years now - they just ran their 112th quiz. I've been going for a few weeks, but have been too lazy to write up a review until now. Anyways, it is a great time, and probably the best quiz in Vancouver that is run every week. It runs quickly, and while the Quizmaster marks all the own answer sheets herself, it goes reasonably fast. There is definitely no "trap you here so you can drink more" mentality to this quiz, which is great.

The questions range from easy to pretty hard, so all can have fun, and the winning score tends to be in the 50-55 range (out of the aforementioned 60). The tiebreaker, which I have only seen once, is excellent. The tied teams get another sheet of paper, and then a trivial pursuit card is read out, and the high score wins. In the event of a tie, it is playoff overtime rules - they keep going until there is a winner. It tends to lead to some sidebets among the non-participating teams as well. This activity is almost surely not sanctioned by the BCLC.

The atmosphere is enjoyable, a good mix of University kids and older folk. It is almost always full, so be prepared to show up an hour early to stake out some space. It can get a bit hectic on Canuck game nights, but the general attitude lately has tended towards quiz over hockey. While I'm positive this trend won't carry over to the playoffs, it is heartening nonetheless. There are ample TVs to catch whichever game you want to watch, though, even when the questions are being asked. Everyone seems nice here.

In the end? A rad quiz, but show up early to grab a table - or win the previous week.