Some old trivia spots in my ‘hood are already offering live hosted pub trivia again in both the Sporcle Live and My Trivia Live leagues. The most recent new Sporcle Live additions I heard about were Ashley’s in Ann Arbor (Thursday nights at 9 p.m.), and Wednesdays at Wolverine State Brewing Co. (Wednesdays at 7 p.m.). A lot of locations are being listed as “coming soon.” Maverick’s in Canton will NOT be doing trivia anymore, per a host’s post I just read today. I’ll be doing my best to keep an eye on the trivia happenings in the coming weeks.

In the My Trivia Live league, only a few Ypsilanti spots popped up in my search – McShane’s Pub, which has been doing trivia since the host Stacy became fully vaccinated (sometime in May I think) and Tower Inn is listed as “coming soon.” Applebee’s in Ypsilanti, Pizza House in Ann Arbor and The Graduate in Ann Arbor are all listed as “coming soon.”

On the competitive trivia front, Sporcle Live is offering players a chance to get into a big-money “Trivia Hunt” on December 11, 2021 with a $10,000 prize pool. This involves players putting together any number of the best and fastest Internet searchers they can get their hands on, finding a way for all of those players to communicate virtually (via Zoom or some other conferencing app) and find the answers to tough trivia questions the fastest they can. These are multi-layered questions that players are ALLOWED to use the Internet in which to find answers!

To see examples of trivia hunt questions, click here: https://hebontheweb.blog/2021/02/14/just-the-questions-trivia-hunt-feb-13-2021/

I played in one of these trivia hunts in February, 2021 and I’m not sure I really enjoyed it. I liked the challenge of it – and I liked being able to use ALL resources – not just the Internet! I brought a variety of things to the basement before the game – including paper maps, a notebook I’ve compiled many, many trivia facts and lists and even a Holy Bible! They didn’t ask anything that involved the Bible, but the notebook and maps did come in handy! Peeking at a map is much, much faster than using Google maps.

I didn’t really enjoy having to be hurried while hunting down the answers – it’s definitely not my style (it’s actually work)! But if you have a big enough group, it only takes about an hour or so.

So how do players get in on this? Well, all they have to do is use their league number and play a minimum of 10 live hosted shows between now and December 5, 2021. These shows can in “in person” pub shows – or virtual shows.

I’m sure I’ll have no problem logging that number of games between now and then, but don’t know whether I’ll try hustling a team for this or not. Too early to say.

There has been some talk amongst my old trivia teammates about playing live shows again, but my husband has become too much of a fan of the virtual trivia to be terribly excited about meeting friends in an indoor service bar for trivia again! My, oh my how the pandemic changed everything (amirite)?

One similar example I can cite is a friend who said he saw the Black Widow movie recently. His comment said it all – “I enjoyed being able to see it on the big screen, but I didn’t like not being able to pause when I had to use the bathroom and put on subtitles so I can read what the people were saying.”

Yeah, I can see that! My husband and I “rented” Bill and Ted Face the Music on demand when it was released in August, 2020. It was kind of nice being able to be in really comfortable seats, being able to watch the movie as many times as you wanted in a 48 hour period and being able to drink your own refreshments that aren’t overpriced – and use the bathroom at your leisure.

And let’s be honest – do I REALLY want to have to put on a bra and “actual pants” to go out for trivia games in bars again? I’m kidding, I’m kidding… I’m just using this as an example! I gotta admit it’s nice to be able to multitask and be able to get some laundry done in my basement while I’m doing a virtual game! I try not to show mine or my husband’s underwear on the Zoom camera, though I’m sure they’ve seen me folding towels and shirts.

If we do actually go into a bar/restaurant for trivia, it will not likely be a weekly occurrence.

That’s about all I have to say about that….stay tuned!