Lauren Bernsen and her brother Eric. Lauren implemented trivia night at the Coronado Yacht Club
Bar trivia, a game that has been wildly popular all over San Diego County for the past five years, has taken hold in Coronado.
Just little over a year ago the Coronado Yacht Club (CYC) started holding monthly trivia nights. About 24 people came to the first night. “After that it exploded,” said CYC board member Lauren Bernsen. “By the spring it was standing room only.” Now the games average over 60 players. Bernsen was looking for something for younger members to do when the racing season ended.
She and her bother Eric had been playing at the Knotty Barrel in East Village for more than a year. “I thought younger people would find it exciting,” she said. “Instead it became a way to bring the generations together. One night we had an 80-year-old and her 12-year-old grandson on the same team. The family was celebrating her birthday,” Barnes said. “He knew all about cartoons; she knew all about Elvis.”
The questions cross so many eras that it really requires members from different generations. Teams have been known to recruit members to fill in a knowledge gap, much as a football team might draft a tight end to bolster their offensive line. There is no limit to the number of people you can have on your team.
While the CYC is private club, you don’t have to be a member to join in the fun. “Guests of members are more than welcome play and to learn about the different activities CYC has too offer,” Bernsen said.
Jessica Carboni asking questions on trivia night.
Each team gets a score sheet and slips of paper to write down their answers and their team’s name. “Cheese Wizards,” “Smarty Pints” or “No Know Nothings” are among the mainstays of the monthly contests.Once the question is asked, the team gets several minutes to come up with an answer while music plays in the background. Teams are also asked to decide how confident you are in your answer, but assigning points to it.
There is one important rule — players cannot consult their smart phone.
At the end of the night scores are totaled up and a winner is declared, which entitles the team to bragging rights as the savants of the month.
In many ways bar trivia harkens back to a time when people talked to (rather than texted) each other and wrote things down on a piece of paper, instead of typing it into an iPad. “It’s really retro,” said Laurel Chestney, of Live Prize Trivia, the company the CYC contracted with to run trivia night.
“Because it’s a team endeavor it get’s people talking to each other , she said. “Each member has an area or expertise or a cultural knowledge.”
Bar trivia has been around for decades and is played around the world, but when Chestney moved here in 2008, nobody had heard of it. “It took her a couple of years, but things started blowing up in 2010,” Chestney said. Her company now holds 27 weekly and 3 monthly contests across the county.
Fans of bar trivia are not surprised by its success. “It’s an awesome way to spend your evening,” Bernsen said. “You get to relax, have dinner, have a drink, test your knowledge and have lots of fun.”
