I just received word Wednesday that The Wurst Bar was going to be doing its last trivia night…ever. I still don’t know any of the “whys,” and like others, am kind of shaking my head. The trivia nights always seemed to attract the crowds, with lots of “regular teams in the mix. There were enough teams playing here regularly so that two teams typically advanced from here to play in semifinals.

I’m guessing that the owner just doesn’t want to pay to have MTL anymore? I have no idea. I’m hoping I hear more about this from the host today. I know she is very disappointed – this is the first place she ever played trivia – and the first place she ever HOSTED trivia. Now, she hosts Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays – and will likely be wanting to find another Wednesday show to host (she really does love her hosting gigs).

Me and my team played here from the winter of 2016 to the end of 2017, and won quite a few semifinal spots in the process. I had a player living within walking distance of Wurst, and another who could ride his bike here in good weather. For the rest of us, it was about a two mile walk (one way) on a really nice day, or a short drive.

I’m not really “hip” to the current player scene at Wurst these days, apart from knowing that the “Pants” team is a longtime “regular” team, and they typically do quite well (averaging about 64 points a night). I’m curious about where they might decide to move now that Wurst has closed up trivia “shop.” The timing is actually right if they decide to move to the Sporcle Live league, though I don’t expect them to do that. I do know that another team moved from playing at Wurst to the Corner Brewery after we started playing at Wurst (I suspect it’s because they were one of the teams that the host said were “driven away” after we started playing there). They’re still doing quite well at the Corner Brewery, though it is no less competitive a spot than Wurst was for winning tournament spots!

If the “dedicated” Wurst teams decide to move their trivia operations to other local bars, it could very well shake up some local trivia scenes! This is actually something that kind of “needs” to happen – IMHO – and I would love a front row seat to this! Even if my team isn’t playing any MTL shows regularly these days. There are a couple of “local” bars that I know of that have had “subpar” teams advancing to semifinals in the past few years simply because they were the best teams playing in the bars that weren’t “barhop.” We “invaded” one of those bars last year and managed to get semifinal spots a couple of times. The bar we “invaded” didn’t exactly… take too kindly to us showing up! The host treated us like garbage from day one, and the players didn’t really treat us too much better, either (though the bar staff was always very good to us). Part way through our third season of playing here, we just kind of said… “meh.” Our cup runneth over – and we haven’t looked back.

I’m disappointed to see Ypsilanti lose another trivia spot 😦