Irish Trivia Night at Irish Center in Union Station
On Saturday February 23 March 1, 2008 at 7pm there is the first of what is scheduled to be an annual trivia contest at the IMCC.
The Irish Trivia Night will feature teams of 6 per table in a battle to win the first title at the Irish center.
There will be beer [update: FREE Guinness], cash and door prizes, a trophy provided by the sponsors, and you’re also promised bragging rights.
Well at $75 entry fee per team you can brag that you entered regardless of how well you have done. [Update: The entry fee is now $100 for a team of 6]
Irish Trivia Night is the first event in a grand kickoff of a special 4-week series of programs, exhibits, speakers and entertainment at Union station designed to promote and share Irish cultural heritage with the whole Kansas City community.
I’ve competed in dozens of trivia contests around Kansas City in the last 8 years, some of the them weekly affairs, others annual, and $75 $100 for a team of 6 is not cheap great value when served with FREE Guinness. I also don’t know what cash prizes are.
$100 for a team of 6 is $16.66 each, or for $15 you can enter as individual observer and consume that FREE Guinness whilst learning, though note that observers are not eligble for cash or door prizes.
Specifically Irish Trivia contests have been tried in Kansas City before of course with mixed degrees of success, or what most of us call failure, so it will be interesting to see how this inaugural event takes off.
When I ran the trivia contest in WJ McBride’s Irish Pub in Overland Park, Kansas it was typically for a 10-week season leading to a Grand Final, but in the week of Paddy’s Day I would make the quiz Irish. Now as much as I promised people that I wouldn’t make the quiz beyond them, people tended not to believe me and so numbers for the Irish night would typically drop off with Americans afraid of being asked Irish questions.
This is understandable. People are happy to answer questions on the one time they spent in Ireland, but when the question is on a county they didn’t visit (Leitrim, nobody visits Leitrim) there’s not much fun to be had.
What I actually did though was things like show a picture on the big screen (it was a multi-media affair in Flash before its time) and say something like, This is a picture of Irish singer Samantha Mumba from Dublin starring in the 2002 version of The Time Machine. Who is the male lead there beside her?*
And on a similar theme I had a whole round called Hey, There’s Bono! in which a series of photos of Bono from around the world with different people were shown and you had to identify everybody but Bono.
Anyway, despite the obvious brilliance of the concept it was always the least attended of the trivia quizzes I ran. From my experience, the trivia contests that run at The Brick and the Record Bar - called Trivia Riot and Trivia Clash - succeed greatly because the structure of the contest means that almost anybody can win as you come to the final question, and what you win is a whole chunk of money.
*Guy Pearce starred in The Time Machine with Samantha Mumba.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
In the interest of complete disclosure, I’d like to point out something you seem to have either overlooked or not been informed about.
You forgot to mention there will likely be no alcoholic beverages available at the IMCC. Since even the modestly successful trivia nights are held at drinking establishments and, as you noted, have a less-than-Irish theme, it might be worth mentioning there’s no drinking allowed at Irish Museum events unless it is something specific like a whiskey tasting event.
I’d hate to think someone who’d experienced a night of lively socializing at The Brick or The Record Bar during a trivia night would arrive at the “museum” only to discover it is a “dry” event (oh, and there’s a prohibition on smoking as well).
Of course, if what you’re looking for is something just shy of the raging excitement of your grandmother’s bingo game or a good game of Scrabble with the kids, this might be just the ticket for you.
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Here is the correct info for the IMCC Trivia Night:
Sat, March 1, 7 pm
sponsored by Guinness - FREE Guinness (and other refreshment) for participants and observers (w/ their entry/entrance fee).
$100 per team ($16.66 each) or $15 for individual observers (not eligble for cash or door prizes) and includes FREE Guinness!
Thanks Irish Mama, this post had been updated but when I moved hosting of the site I lost the updates and it reverted to the original post.
I’ll try and reinstate those lost updates, and regardless of whether I manage I’ll update with your information and highlight it. Thanks again.