Trivia Past And Future

(I am the person of the female persuasion in this picture taken at Dovercourt Trivia Night.)

On Friday Lady Mollweide called and invited me to attend a trivia night at Dovercourt Community Centre, to fill out the two teams from the schooll; I had shown my interest before. Besides being trivia practice, the night, organised by the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa West (by the way, Shilhak-Inshushinak, if you ever read this, both Dovercourt Recreational Centre and the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa West are blog names for Dovercourt Recreational Centre and the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa West, respectively ;-)

My impressions of the trivia night are best summarised in my letter to Lady Mollweide afterwards:

Salutations

1) The School Team (Oliver, Cuchulain, Rustem, Cuchulain's father) got 12th place out of 30 teams. The Margaret Atwood Team (the Kilhuch family and I) got 17th, two points
behind (there were a lot of ties). We were leading them until the eighth round. The questions were tough - I believe the top score was in the seventies, out of one hundred questions.

2) You won a door prize! I took it for you, and now it is sitting in my front hall - I hope it was not damaged by the ride back. A beautifully wrapped box of something; we suspect it is a bottle, but it is up to you to find out. I will give it to you on Monday afternoon or Tuesday, how it works out.

3) Refreshments in the form of plates of chips, at $1 a plate, seem to be a big success - our own table spent $5 or $6 in the course of the night. Soft drinks, though, were in limited supply. For our night, we should compensate for our "Prohibition law" by making as wide a variety as we can of soft drinks, bottled water, juice, coffee and tea available; if we can at all afford it, something other than Red Rose tea! (The Kilhuch family, suffering without root beer, suggested we
have a keg of root beer. Probably a combination chips and bake sale would be successful.)

4) Scores were done on a spreadsheet PowerPoint on a laptop linked to the InFocus projector. I believe I can find how to set one up, and set it so the ranks are clearly visible and not almost-hidden by the bottom of the screen.

5) The Roland family (playing on a separate team) introduced me to one or two of their trivia-loving friends, who seemed enthusiastic about the planned event. I also spoke briefly to Paul Paquet, who was also encouraging.

6) I do believe the card tables were a great idea; they ensure enough privacy for the teams. However, we probably cannot procure thirty or forty card tables on such short notice, so we will have to work that one out. If only our desks were not all chair-attached!

7) GREAT idea they had: provide a sponsor for each round, and put the sponsor's name on the scoresheet. I would consider it even better if we put the round sponsor's logo on every scoresheet (print on sponsor letterhead?), and, as they did, make sure to project the sponsor's logo, and address (they did not have that) with thanks, on the
PowerPoint each time we can. As well - maybe "table sponsors"? Whatever tables look like, we can provide scratch paper on each table (like at World Trivia Night) with the sponsor's logo on the scratch paper. A higher price to be a round sponsor than a table sponsor, perhaps? Tanaquil (the Acta editor) knows the fair prices to charge for Acta advertising.

8) Maybe we can work out a deal with local food businesses to provide some of the food for the night in exchange for advertising: "Coffee generously provided by the Second Cup on Elgin St...." or something.

9) Maybe we could team up with, say, the art classes to exhibit some of the students' work at the night, or arrange for some school musical group to provide a bit of entertainment during the break - Dovercourt had only piped music on the speakers, whereas if we can say "live music provided," it will encourage people to come, because, besides being trivia freaks, they also feel like patrons of the arts. I do not know if that impinges on some jurisdictions or something, but it is an idea worth tossing up in the air. We should arrange for it soon, if so, since then we can mention the arts connection to potential sponsors. I know the Bagelshop had a near-policy to only sponsor artsy things, and a few other businesses might as well.

10) It may be an audacious idea, but given the technology these days - perhaps for a higher fee, we can offer to play an actual brief ten-fifteen second commercial for sponsoring business, in an audio or even video file they may provide, on the InFocus projector. Tell me if I am crazy, or if that is too invasive already, but it must be more effective than the reader saying "We thank Hulse, Playfair and McGarry. If you die soon, go to Hulse, Playfair and McGarry." If that flies with the Principal, we can find out what the radio charges, and go lower. Even if the audio idea won't pan out, we can offer actual print poster ads for a higher fee, instead of just logos.

11) Definitely door prizes. I think they are a vital part of any adult gathering these days. As well, the idea of giving prizes to the team with the highest score for some of the rounds is a good idea; warning in advance "This round is a prize round" would increase the excitement, which Kiwanis did not do. The idea of tiebreaker
questions, like a spelling bee, made for an exciting show, with everyone listening to see who of the four teams will go out.

12) Kilhuch's father suggested roping some celebrity to serve as quizmaster. That will definitely attract the people, but I do not know what celebrity we can afford. Also, we must project questions on the PowerPoint; Kiwanis did not, and it is unfair if teams ask for some of the questions to be repeated.

In any case, I am amazed myself at my advertising blitz savvy. Let me know what you think, and I will see you this week. With the door prize.

Tourmaline

Oliver, when I polled the team there for more feedback on how to run ours, suggested that (a) the questions be progressively more difficult as the round progresses, and (b) the quizmaster should have more background knowledge. There was a problem when the question was asked "What is a googolplex" and both Kilhuch and Cuchulain knew that it is 1 followed by a googol zeroes (10 to the power of 10 to the power of 100), while the Quizmaster said the answer was 1 followed by a billion zeroes. Cuchulain and Kilhuch went and argued with him, until he yielded to say any concept of a number would be considered correct. Since I will probably end up writing most of the questions, I am certain I will be able to provide more background information.

Besides, Reach for the Top wrote back to me, saying they like the sample questions I sent them, and they would be willing to accept 30 pages of questions like that. I immediately sent them the thirty pages I already had, and mentioned more were on the way. They also spoke of a contract, which eased my heart; I have sold my writing before, and I was growing wary at no mention of a contract. So wary that I carefully coded LaTeX to put my name and the date (of the last compile cycle of the file) on each page, just in case Reach skip out on me and I have to take them to court for my hundred bucks. So I write questions for the next Reach pack (it is half done), and await the contract meanwhile.

And that is all I will say on the trivia subject now. That does not quite ease the previous post's angst about my not being good for anything, but whatever. Life goes on even if I am not written in the annals of history, although my heart wrenches inside me at the very idea of not being written in the annals of history.

He-he.