In a nutshell...

The quiz runs anywhere from 90-120 minutes, and starts at 7pm on a weeknight. People may play individually, but usually assemble into teams, with a maximum of 6 players per team to keep it fair. The winning team may receive a gift certificate from the venue, food, or small prizes. Regardless, the rules and prizes of the game du jour are always explained by the Quizmaster General in advance.

The quiz consists of two call rounds, two handouts, and a final challenge round at the end for the two to five teams in the lead, depending on how many teams are playing. The first round is always a "Bingo Trivia" round, which is a set of 25 questions which are answered onto a Bingo sheet. As the answers are read back in random order, the correct answers are circled on the bingo sheet. First team to get a Bingo (5 across, 5 down, 5 diagonally or all 4 corners) gets a 30 point bonus for their team. Round 2 is always different. It may be Name that Tune, Jeopardy, Who Am I, Balderpiggies, or other original types of faire. From movies, music and television to science, geography and history, no round consists of anything that only one type of person would know. This broad-based method, again, keeps things fair.

Ready to play?

Check the schedule to see where the next quiz night is, then assemble a crack team of problem solvers for the night. At the pub, you must select a name for your team, which must be written on all papers handed in. Once you've told the Quizmaster the name of your team, you are given pens & forms for gameplay. These forms may contain questions or be blank answer sheets. A mixture of both is common. Often the paper is split in two - one half for the Quizmaster, one half to be kept as a record of the answers.

Individual Rounds

The rounds generally fall into the following categories, given in approximate order of commonness:

Trivia rounds - Common topics are:

-- General - a mixture of topics like language, history, geography, current events, "common" knowledge, and science. There are many broad, general knowlege questions, several specific-to-a-topic questions, and a few humdingers.

-- Sport - comprising the statistics and minutiae of popular, well-known sports and general facts about others.

-- Entertainment - Movies, TV shows and music.

Picture rounds - these are on photocopied hand-outs and consist of photos of various famous people to be identified. The copies are more than likely poor quality to add to the mystery.

Music rounds - (Otherwise known as "Name That Tune") These consist of songs played over the PA system, usually the teams must identify the song and the singer or band.

Puzzle rounds - generally on a handed-out sheets. Typically these consist of riddles, puzzles, anagrams, multiple choice questions, match games, or other types of quiz-type paper puzzles.

Marking

The Quizmaster checks the answers to the questions before reading aloud the answers. Depending on the venue, there may be a round winner.

Prizes

Prizes may consist of various items from the venue or sent over from a brewery, such as t-shirts and beer glasses advertising their products.

A Sample Pub Quiz...

Below is a typical quiz night at a pub somewhere in Portland.

6:45 p.m. - The Quizmaster announces that there is a quiz starting at 7:00. The Quizmaster asks all groups to write down their team names.

7:00 p.m. ROUND 1 - BINGO trivia - 120 pts
25 questions worth 2 points each. Some questions are Trivial Pursuit-style, some are multiple choice, and there is even movie trivia where a clip from a movie is played over the P.A. system and you have to guess the movie. Every week it's different. After you write in the answer next to the number First team to get BINGO gets a 20-point bonus.

7:45 p.m. ROUND 2 - NAME THAT TUNE - 120 pts
10 Tunes typically from the 80's to the present. 1 pt. each for naming the tune, the artist, and the year it came out.

8:30 p.m. ROUND 3 - PENCIL PUZZLES - 100-150 pts
Anagrams, word puzzles, riddles, or name that personality. Turned in at any time following Round 2.

8:45 p.m. FINAL CHALLENGE ROUND - 50 pts
The top three teams in the lead have a head-to-head round to score 50 points for their team, and possibly catapult 3rd place into 1st!

8:50 p.m. We have a WINNER!
To the winners go the spoils and team pride!