IQ 2000 @ The Colony

(but also Kits)

Where: Colony Main, 2904Main Street  and Colony Kits, 3255 West Broadway

When: 8 PM Mondays for the Main Street Edition, 8 PM Wednesdays for Kits

Web Presence: You can follow IQ2000 on Facebook, for all your IQ2K needs

Team Info: Team limit maxes at seven, ostensibly

Prizes: Various cool prizes to be won. Free beers for successful and loud teams, augmented by local prizes ranging from salsa to piercings.

Format: Four rounds of about ten questions

Food and Drink: I seem to recall standard upscale pub food that fancies itself better than it actually was. You'll find something for everyone on the beer list, from affordably priced domestics to local craft offerings.

I'm kind of cheating here, doing two reviews at once. I think that every bar should be given a fair shake, even when the quizzes are run by the same folk. That said: These quizzes are pretty much the same, from the stylish host to the Donnelly-lite decor of the gastropubs that contain them. I thought for quite some time on how I could write a substantively different review for each experience, and, through my own faults as a writer, came up empty-handed. The differences boil down as follows: There's slightly different flavouring in the prizes, and the Main Street event traditionally attracts more teams. Also, there's no big screen at the Kits location to support IQ 2000's fantastic visual presentation.

To be honest, though you might actually think I'm getting two reviews for the price of one, the truth is, I'm getting two for the price of none. We're big fans of IQ 2000 at Vancouver Pub Quiz, as you probably noticed. Since we've reviewed his quiz so many times, we will point to in the direction of our review for the erstwhile Mr. Brownstone, now the location of Colony Main. Take that description, drop it into the slick confines of a Blueprint Group property^1, and there you have it.


TWICE AS NICE:  It's an IQ 2000 quiz: lots of hooting, hollering, good questions, and an excellent presentation. If I had to choose between the two, I'd say the Main Street location is the better of the two, mostly due to its superior attendance, competition, and features the visual show as well.

Gotta get that Royal Jelly

---

1 Unfamiliar? Imagine a the restaurant equivalent of any recent song by The Weeknd^↩

The Kings Head (cancelled)

Alas, the King is dead. Find IQ 2000 at various other quizzes about the town on their facebook page.

Where: The Kings Head, 1618 Yew Street in Kitsilano

When: 7:00 PM Sundays, Weekly

Web Presence:  You can follow IQ2000 on Facebook, and get yourself a few free answers every week

Team Info: Maximum team size of seven

Prizes: Prizes to be won include pitchers of beer, gift certificates for pizzas from Uncle Fatih's, and salsa party packs from Fresh is Best Salsa. Prizes aren't only for winning teams. It just wouldn't be an IQ 2000 quiz without the shrill howls of teams trying to win free drinks by making noise.

Format: 2 Halves of 20 questions, nominally divided into rounds

Food and Drink: Bar food. The nachos weren't very good the night we were there, but the beer specials were excellent. I think their priorities are in order.

The Kings Head is located in a quaint building, which dates back to 1897, which makes it ancient by Vancouver standards. This "Tudor-style" edifice was a fish market and beauty parlour before taking its current form as a purveyor of inebriants in 1973. As its aged exterior suggests, the interior is a confounding warren of tables, nooks, snugs, stairways, and almost certain fire code violations. Within these Borgesian corridors, however, you are likely to find some friendly faces, cheap drinks, and at least 6 TVs tuned to the same sporting event. The beer is cheap, the food average, and the staff friendly.

I don't have all that much to say about the quiz itself, as my enjoyment of IQ 2000 quizzes is well documented, and the quiz at the Kings Head is no exception. Unfortunately, the Kings Head lacks a proper audiovisual setup, and the most essential part of IQ2K's charm, the wonderful multimedia presentation, is not present. The questions are still excellent, but it lacks in comparison to previous nights.

An even shorter version: A fun quiz, although I missed the multimedia cavalcade I had grown used to. Probably the best pub sign in town.

Daedalus would be proud

Book Report

Alright bookworms, I've got some quiz announcements for you today. A literary-themed quiz? Nope! Two literary-themed quizzes? Nope! THREE literary-themed quizzes? Yup! Since I've wasted your time with this little guessing game, let's go straight to the good news: 

First up, we have another night of Harry Potter Trivia, this time at the Sunset Grill in Kitsilano on Wednesday, April 8th at 7:30. Five dollar entry fee, loads of prizes, and a costume contest! You can buy your tickets ahead of time through brown paper tickets. Who will win this Triwizard Cup?

Next up, The Friends of the Coquitlam Library are hosting their second annual quiz to raise money for the library on Friday, April 10th. Tickets are $25 dollars per person, and teams are of up to 8 people. I didn't get a chance to attend last year, so hopefully I can make it out this time around. The fun starts at 7:30PM at the City Centre branch. 

Finally, the North Shore Writers Festival's 3rd Annual Literary Quiz Night, hosted by CBC's Grant Lawrence, will take place a week later, on April 17th. The show starts at 8:30, and is located at the West Van Memorial Library this year. Last year's was a blast, so I highly recommend that you come down and try and wrest the trophy (really!) from the staff at Black Bond Books. Teams of up to six people.

So, if you like quizzes and books (and quizzes about books), you just might find your schedule quite packed next month. 

The Beat Goes On

Good Evening! Even more quiz updates. In standard point form:

• The Waldorf, current hosts of Woo Hoo! Simpsons trivia, is now hosting trivia nights the second and fourth Monday of every month. Mark that in your calendars, if your calendar apps support that level of specificity (and they should).
• IQ 2000 is now hosting at Colony in Kits on Mondays
• I hear there is a J.R.R. Tolkein trivia night coming up in March, but I won't say any more about it.

Daylight Savings Quiz

To those who quiz on Sunday nights: Rowan's Roof will now start their quiz at 6 in the evening, and not 7. This way, the farmers will have even more time to quiz, or something.

Quiz Roland To The Dark Tower Came

Once again, it appears to be time to announce another new pub quiz. The newest kid on the block is Roland's on 4th, located on West 4th avenue in Kitsilano. You thought that Wednesday's quiz schedule was getting full, and you were having trouble picking out which quiz to go to? Tough! We've got another hat in the ring, run by the people of Moving Music & Events - in the even that name means anything to you. I've never heard of them before, which has got me quite excited to take in a quiz written by an unknown (to me).

The quiz advertises itself as being based on pop culture, and they're offering specials of $3.95 highballs and a free plate of wings for each table. there's no entry free, and the quiz purports to start at seven PM. The quiz starts as of Wednesday, November 12, 2014, and runs weekly.

So, a quick recap:
-Roland's on 4th
-Wednesdays at 7PM
-FREE WINGS

The Coppertank

Where: The Coppertank, located at 3135 W Broadway in Kits

When: 7:45, on a roughly biweekly schedule

Web Presence:  The official Trivia page provides the upcoming schedule. It is usually every two weeks but not always, so check ahead of time. You can sometimes find a hint on the Coppertank's Facebook page.

Team Info: Max team size of 8, and there are usually a fair number of teams with that many.

Prizes: We finished third and got $25 knocked off our bill. I think second gets the same, and first twice that.

Format: Three rounds, 12 questions each, and a picture round. Each round ends with a sound clip worth two points.

Food and Drink: I didn't eat here, but the food selection looked pretty good. About what one would expect in Kits. The beer was the happy middle ground between Megabreweries galore and a full-on craft beer explosion. Gigantic mugs of Grasshopper were on special, around eight dollars for 24 ounces of beer.

Billing itself as "the best pub quiz in Kits," the Coppertank Grill's cavernous confines play host to a derby of knowledge every other Wednesday night. More or less. I haven't exactly pinned down their schedule, but "every two weeks, usually" seems to be an apt descriptor. The official start time is 7:45, making it the only quiz in town that doesn't start on the hour or half hour. Will this bold time slot gamble pay off? Let' see what I think!

The quiz itself went briskly, which I think is a boon. It was marked by the host and his assistant, and score updates would often come in the middle of the second round. If you've got the personnel to pull this off, I think it is a great idea. Too often I've been bored stiff at a quiz while the markers wait until everything has been marked and checked and ranked. While unorthodox, I didn't mind the announcing of the rankings midway through the next round.

Pienaar, 1995 Coppertank quiz champion

The picture round was the best I've played in a while. While not particularly varied — naming sports stars and their numbers — it had an excellent range of easy (Wayne Gretzky), middling (Kareen Abdul-Jabbar), difficult (Christine Sinclair), and fiendish (Francois Pienaar) questions. While I expect few Vancouver quizzers know of Pienaar, surely some may have at least thought that he was probably the guy Matt Damon played in Invictus, so hopefully no one felt too hard done by. I can only assume that it took a team with an Afrikaaner in their ranks to scry the correct number. His number was six, and he wasn't even the most famous person to wear a number six Pienaar jersey - that honour surely goes to Nelson Mandela.



The rest of the questions were good, but not quite on the level of the picture round. Not too much to write about, but it tended more towards "trivial" things that could go either way than towards fact-based recall. I like and don't like those kinds of questions. I like them because hey, it is trivia, and I don't like them because they usually put our teams into ten-minute long agony spirals because it is borderline impossible to actually know the answer. I'll stop here, before I go too Pub Quiz Policy Wonk for my own blog, but suffice it to say The Coppertank handled these types of pesky questions with aplomb.

15-12 over New Zealand: A good quiz on the crowded Wednesday evening docket. Is it the best quiz in Kits, as they claim? I personally don't think so, but I wouldn't hesitate in putting it second. Good questions, good pacing, and good drinks make this a great evening. Next time, I'll make sure to bring a larger team. The odd time slot? It's probably just a way of saying "It starts at 8, but get here early"

That's right, THE Tank

Rowan's Roof (cancelled)

The quiz at Rowan's Roof has been discontinued. For Sunday night quizzing in Kits by the same host, head to The King's Head

Where: Rowan's Roof, located at 2340 W 4th Avenue in Kits

When: 6PM Sundays, weekly

Web Presence:  You can follow IQ2000 on Facebook, and get yourself a few free answers every week

Team Info: I think there is a max team size of seven, but concessions can be made.

Prizes: A smorgasbord. There are usually some pitchers of beer getting awarded for general enthusiasm and victory, along with others. Prizes from the last few weeks have included: A gift certificate for a facial at Bioethique, a free haricut, a bottle of house wine, a $25 gift card to Broadway International Wine Shop, and 50 minutes of free tanning at a salon. Personally I wonder at the intersection of pub quizzers and salon tanners, but you can't argue that these are pretty excellent prizes!

Format: 4 rounds, 10 questions each, divided into two halves. So really two rounds of 20 questions. Themed music round

Food and Drink: It's food and drink. The beer selection leaves a lot to be desired. But they've got a nice patio, and the house wine's on special.


At long last I was able to take time out of my busy church-going schedule (Hi, Mom!) to attend a pub quiz on a Sunday night. A couple of us hopped the bus to Kits and took in the evening at Rowan's Roof. The crowd was decent for a Sunday night, about eight teams or so. To be honest, I don't go to a lot of pubs on Sundays, so I'm not sure what the baseline is. But there were tables full of people having fun,with some room for more, so it looks like it is doing something right. The quiz was also competing against a supremely gorgeous day, such as we have be privy to of late. I would expect an uptick in crowds, as ever, when the autumn rains come lashing in.

The quiz itself, I don't have too much to say that wasn't already said during the Mr. Brownstone review. Same delightful host, same cheer-offs that wear on you the more frequently you go, same good questions and same fantastic production. The music round has officially become a staple of IQ2000 quizzes, and while the same categories pop up every now and again, the rounds at Rowan's Roof have been quite good. Nothing like the brain agony of when I can't remember the name of the Buffalo Springfield song for approx. the seven thousandth time. The slideshow accompaniment to the Answers continues to reward deep reading. Pay attention sons and daughters, it is probably the highlight of Vancouver quizzes.

As you may have read already, the prizes are excellent here. On top of being some pretty cool swag to take home, they're very community-oriented — almost all the non-beer at the bar prizes for Rowan's Roof come from businesses in the area. So get out there, win some prizes, and support some local business.

For What It's Worth: A fun quiz with great prizes at an okay bar. Fortunately, the food and drink is fairly cheap. The best of Sunday? Quite possibly, but I'll suspend judgement until I've gathered some more data on the topic.

That sound was that song, of course

Nobody Suspects A Thing

Canada Day is fast approaching, and what better way to celebrate than with a quiz? I suppose I can think of few, but they all involve extenuating circumstances, so let's just leave those off the table for now. So, as a gift to you, my fellow Canadian residents and transients, I present with two new quizzes! Or rather, two quizzes heretofore unknown to me. Although I am octopus-like in some respects, I can assure that I am a completely normal human being, and thus cannot be everywhere at once. Anyhow.

Vancouver Trivia Party (is now/has been for some time) running two weekly pub quizzes. You'll find one on Tuesdays at The Academic in Kits, and the other on Wednesdays, at the Blarney Stone in the loins of Gastown. Both quizzes advertise a 7:30 start time. I haven't had the chance to attend either yet, but given the name and the locale, it sounds like it will be a riotous occasion indeed.

Will your local quiz be running on Canada Day? Beats me! You may want to check ahead of time just to be sure though. I can tell you for certain that my local Tuesday quiz at Mr Brownstone will not be running Canada Day. If you fear you may suffer from IQ2000 trivia withdrawal, fear not, as Mr IQ2000 will be running a special one-off quiz at Rowan's Roof, in Kitsilano.

The Bimini

Where: The Bimini, 2010 W 4th Avenue

When: 7pm, Mondays. It might start a little late in the face of a hockey game, but at least you'll have a distraction while you're waiting for the quiz to start.

Web Presence: Nice Guys Trivia, who run this party, have a Facebook page you can follow.

Team Info: Bring as many as you want, as far as I can tell.

Format: Similar to the Calling's old Monday night quiz, it is 8 rounds, split up into 2 halves of 4 rounds apiece. The entirely Vancouver Province-based "In the news" round remains, alas.

Prizes: Beer, beer, beer and more beer. I think there is also a 12-week long trivia "season," and I'm not sure what the grand prize for that is. A trophy? A plaque? I'm not certain, but I think that free beer is a pretty safe bet. I think you might also have a chance at winning some swag here as well.

Food and drink: The usual Donnelly pub fare - 2.5-3.0 on Yelp level food, and drinks that are a bit pricy if you navigate away from the safe shoals of the specials. Fortunately, the drink specials are really good. $3 beer? Now that's a newsletter I subscribe to!

So I finally, finally got the chance to go down to West Fourth and try out the quiz night at The Bimini. I don't tend to frequent Donnelly pubs that often - their style isn't really my style, but I was glad I was finally able to make the bus ride down to Kitsilano and enjoy the bumping quiz at the Bimini.

Much as the former quizzes at The Calling, this is run by the nice guys of, well, Nice Guys Trivia. It has been at least a year or maybe even two since I last took in a Nice Guys quiz, and it seems they've tightened up their game. The quiz is much the same as I recall, and very similar to the boys at Falconetti's quiz - A picture round, a general knowledge round, a music round, multiple choice, break. More general knowledge, more music, "In the news," and then Bonus questions, which is a nice way of saying questions that are tougher than average. They also add some beer into the mix, with two games of pub standard "Head or tails" for pitchers and pints mixed into each half. Fun fact: In Russia, this game is called Орёл или ре́шка - "eagle or lattice" which is way, way cooler. Independent of country, it is also a pretty good excuse to stand up and stretch.

The man gets around

Now, the main complaints I had back when I bitched out the quiz at the Calling were that it took too long, the music round was simple, and the "Today in the Province" round was a joke. I'm very happy to say that almost all of these have been fixed - the quiz started late due to a (fairly dull) Habs loss, but we ended on time, and the Herculean labour of marking 25 teams did not seem to stretch on nearly so long. The music round had a few groaners, but was a lot better than I recalled. I do wonder if Johnny Cash's American Recordings are owned by every single quizmaster in town, though. They're good, but it seems I hear them all the time in music rounds. Finally, what about the "In the News" Round? Well, two out of three ain't bad. At least they didn't ask how much a flight to Cancun was this time, but I think they can do better than this. Unless of course, they get a kickback from Postmedia to mention their colourful picture book every week. In which case, keep it up and make some paper.

The questions remain more on the "everybody have fun" end of the spectrum as opposed to "let's bust some trivia chops" end, which is a good fit for the location/crowd. The atmosphere here is great, as the place is swarming with teams - most of whom seem to be wise to the strategy of reserving a spot ahead of time and then showing up as the quiz starts. Competition was fierce, and the top teams had some impressive scores, if unimpressive names. If you're playing to win here, make sure you know your music - out of a (roughly) 90 point quiz, a little over 40 of the points came from recognizing songs and artists. Get yourself a music expert or two and a copy of the Province and you just might waltz away with it. Even if you don't swing with the quizerati at this event, you can enjoy the charming hosts, Ed and Jeff, Perhaps you could just play a game of pinball, pool, or foosball in the surprisingly well-stocked games room. Or maybe, just maybe enjoy a three dollar glass of beer or two. There are worse things to do on a Monday night.

If you read just one paragraph, read this one: A fun, lively quiz, where you stand a pretty good chance of having a fun time. It tends a bit towards the easier side, and make sure you read the Province before showing up.

The Cove, Redux

Where: The Cove, 3681 West 4th

When: 8pm every Monday

Web Presence:  The facebook group has quiz info and flat out gives away three answers each week, which you'll want to take note of because the corresponding questions are unbelievably difficult.

Registration Fee: Nobody really does these anymore, so from here on assume a quiz is free unless we tell you otherwise

Team Info: No de jure team limit, but the compactness of the venue and corresponding smallness of the furniture will make it tough to get more than six around a single table

Format: Three rounds of 15 questions each

Prizes: Free shots given out for funny answers or creative team names, as adjudged by the host.

No, Hassan, it's poker chips now

The new hosting regime also carries on the "magic keys" prize format, with numbered poker chips substituted for the previous macguffins. After each round, the first, second, and third place teams receive three, two, or one chips, respectively, and the total points winner after all three rounds gets a free pitcher and eight chips. The host then draws a random number, and whichever team holds the chip with that number wins their choice of grand prize: a $50 Cove gift certificate, or the contents of a mystery box.



Food and Drink: Won't thrill you. I also tried a Blood Alley beer which I didn't care for in the least.

This blog reviewed The Cove back in 2012; since then, however, the old Kits watering hole has gone through two changes of hosting duties, so we thought it prudent to give it another go -- especially since Cascade's What the #!*@?'s recent retirement has left a great void on the Monday night quiz calendar.

Reading back over that review, it seems things under the new stewardship are substantially the same as they were then, but there seem to have been a few changes, mostly for the better.

I never tried the Cove quiz under the previous host, but the new emcee tends the helm well. Chris writes the questions himself and his tastes incline somewhat to the geeky; last night we got a point last night for knowing that Peppy's famous exhortation in Star Fox 64 was "Do a barrel roll!" and I'm sure future weeks will have similar such content in store.

As opposed to the previous two freelancers, Chris is an in-house host, doubling as Cove's marketing manager, one especially pleasant consequence of which is that he can give out free drinks essentially whenever he pleases, which is quite often. Come up with a witty joke answer and you've got a very good chance of winning your table a round of shots. And on the subject of complimentary spirits, the night I was there, the quiz was apparently sponsored by Canadian Club who had brought in a pair of Cactus-Club-waitress-types to dole out Dixie-cup-sized samples of their whisky.

As for my nitpicky critique, I'll say this: if you want to hint an answer on facebook, that's OK; give the answer outright, if you must; but something's wrong when the question is so impossible that you could only get it right from being given the answer. For example, who played "Stock Boy" in Home Alone? His subsequent appearance in 1997's Picture Perfect notwithstanding, I'd place Jim Ryan well outside the canon of suitable quiz answers. This goes a bit beyond the pale of rewarding those who follow your social media to additionally punish those who don't. (I also challenge the figure of two-hundred-something total deaths in the Game of Thrones series so far. The Battle on the Blackwater alone claimed several thousand casualties! Did we mean named characters? Please specify next time!)

The more I think about it, the more I like the magic keys prize format. While elite teams are still rewarded for their knowledge, lesser contenders can still compete and have a good chance of taking home the big prize. No more juggernauts running wild week after week. Call it enforced egalitarianism, but this seems like an idea too good to stay confined to one venue -- don't be surprised if every quiz in town is giving out poker chips, keys, ping pong balls, or buttons before long.

Our last reviewer had it about right the last time. This is a strong quiz with a good host, a fun mechanic for giving away the big prize (it was a full-size metal toboggan this week!), and the steady flow of free shots and pitchers are a pleasing addition.