The Circle of Life

I come today as the bearer of some sad news, but to counteract, I've brought double the glad news. I hope that'll work.

The sad is that there's one fewer quiz in the city: The Pressbox is no longer running their quiz. Too bad. 

The glad is that there's two new ones to announce! Falconetti's has brought back their Wednesday quiz, albeit with different hosts. As with some other quizzes in town, they look to be locking into a league play format, and according to their website are offering one thousand dollars to the top placing team. That's some pretty good coin right there. The second is a bit further afield, but will probably scratch your itch if you finding yourself missing the Pressbox. The Narrows in North Vancouver is now running quizzes Wednesday at 8, for those of you North of the Ironworker's. 

Enjoy!

I Quiz! I Die! I Quiz Again!

Friends an enemies of pub quiz, I've got some news on the ins and outs of pub quiz in Vancouver.

IN: Harry Potter Quiz is returning to The Sunset Grill on Wednesday, June 24th. At 7:30 PM, come on down and take your O.W.L.s and your N.E.W.T.s, and have a lot of fun answering questions about the world's favourite teen wizarding sensation. I can't back that last statement up with fact, but take my word for it. Tickets can be purchased here. The last event sold out, so get on it before it is too late. 

OUT: After several years of quizzing patrons on Commercial Drive, the trivia night at Falconetti's has shut its proverbial doors. I'll miss it, but the gentlemen from Smarty Pints Trivia continue at The Five Point,  where you'll find them every Wednesday evening. 

IN: My, IQ 2000 is keeping busy. On top of their weekly quizzes at the Kings Head and the two Colonies (Main and Kitsilano), there is a truly staggering array of niche quizzes hosted at the Biltmore Cabaret. If Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings wasn't your thing, then perhaps mid-90s and early 2000s television is more up your alley. You'll find IQ 2000-hosted quizzes on Seinfeld, Friends, and The OC, all in the next month. Goodness.

Falconetti's Smarty Pints Trivia

THE QUIZ AT FALCONETTI'S IS NO MORE. TO REMINISCE ABOUT HAPPIER QUIZ TIMES, CATCH SMARTY PINTS TRIVIA AT THE FIVE POINT ON MAIN STREET, WEDNESDAYS AT 8.

Where: Falconetti's East Side Grill, 1812 Commercial Drive

When: 8pm every Tuesday

Web Presence:  The Falconetti's facebook page posts reminders about the quiz, albeit somewhat irregularly

Team Info: However many you can fit at your table

Format: About 40 questions plus a name that tune, multiple choice, current events, and a picture round. At halftime all scores are wiped out, so you get a first half winner and a second half winner, but no overall winner

Prizes: Choice of shots or pitcher for top three teams in first and second half, as well as for particularly funny joke answers.

Food and drink: Falconetti's is famed for their tantalizing menu of gourmet sausages; meanwhile, the veg-heads will enjoy the creative poutines on offer.


Falconetti's pub quiz takes place every Tuesday at 8pm, downstairs. Specificity is important in this case because if you go upstairs at the same time, there's stand-up comedy, and if you go on the wrong day, you may find yourself, variously, at either a karaoke night, a Walking Dead screening party, a DJ set, a live rock-country performance, or even a burlesque show.

Appropriately, Falconetti's quiz is the venue in microcosm: a quirky mashup of sundry cultural elements with the common thread throughout being a simple dedication to fun, in all its various forms. And in this regard, Falconetti's is a success.

Tandem emcees Greg and Ryan run the show here and share the hosting and question-writing duties between them. The hosting is good: the two work a kind of deadpan, affectedly-listless Brian-Posehn-slash-mumblecore-cinema angle which may not play to all tastes, but I found entertaining.

The question writing is better: the two have a knack for writing questions that are, as mentioned above, a lot of fun. My team had a great time trying to puzzle out what year Alex Trebek shaved his trademark mustache or what Ontario city was recently anointed Canada's serial killer capital (who'd've thought it was sleepy little college town London? It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for.) The name that tune round, an eclectic mix of shameless dance-in-your-seat jams ripped from Napoleon Dynamite's iPod, was equally enjoyable, in spite of a minor ID3 snafu which misidentified the artists -- and artists they are -- behind "Whoomp! There It Is."

Between questions, Falconetti's brawny sound system blasts yet more music at you, again, hewing closely to the establishment's holy gospel of party ye all the time. Fun, yes, but so loud as to make intra-team discussion somewhat difficult. Let's by no means lose the music -- that would be nothing less than apostasy -- instead, just ratchet it down from 11 to 10.

(On that note, stick around after the quiz for an outstanding '80s hair metal set by DJ Thunderjunk, a man who it must be said is no less than a connoisseur of the genre, as attested by him playing a Ratt song that wasn't "Round and Round.")

Bottom line, Falconetti's is a lot of fun. Definitely worth a check out.

Beware