Alan Lovett - Trivia Nights for Dummies

Trivia Nights for Dummies

by Alan Lovett

Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd

Trivia Nights For Dummies

Australian edition published by Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd 42 McDougall Street Milton, Qld 4064 www.dummies.com

Copyright 2007 Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Lovett, Alan.Trivia nights for dummies.

Australian ed.

Includes index.ISBN 978 0 731 40594 7 (pbk).

1. Questions and answers Competitions. 2. Questions and answers Planning. I. Title. (Series: For dummies).

793.73

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About the Author

Alan Lovett started his own trivia event company, Melbourne Trivia Company, after becoming bored with the banal old-fashioned style of his events-company employers and embarrassed by the under-researched questions he often found himself asking as a host at trivia nights.

Since then, Alan has become an acknowledged specialist in writing interesting trivia questions. He has been commissioned to write questions for Carlton Draught and VB bottle caps you can read nearly 3000 of his questions just by unscrewing beer caps. In the months leading up to the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Alan wrote 1000 multiple-choice questions for The Brains Behind the Games , an online Australia-wide corporate trivia quiz for Commonwealth Games sponsors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Hudson and Allens Arthur Robinson. He has also written Melbourne-based trivia for the Web site, Only Melbourne (www.OnlyMelbourne.com.au).

As a host, Alan is a popular choice, particularly for trivia nights involving the arts, having prepared and hosted successful events for the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the St Kilda Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival and the Melba Conservatorium of Music. For five years now, his Fringe Trivia Challenge has pitted representatives of Melbournes major arts organisations against one another in triviatorial combat.

Alan has also presented trivia for sporting clubs such as Carlton AFL Club.

Money-raising trivia activities are a specialty of Alans Melbourne Trivia Company, and the beneficiaries he has helped range from small suburban child-care centres to major medical research, including the fields of ovarian cancer research and cochlear ear transplants.

Alan has spent many years in the world of entertainment. As an entertainer, he has performed in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. As a writer/actor he has toured Canada and parts of the USA five times in the past 15 years. He also performs regularly in Japan (in Japanese).

Dedication

To Sara, who is the honest, intelligent, talented, funny, loyal, quirky, nicotine-addicted, critical, bossy and stubborn joy of my life. She also really knows how to accessorise.

Authors Acknowledgments

Id like to say this book is all my own work but, luckily for me, it has had input and help from a number of other people.

Thanks to Janet McLeod who runs a mean trivia night herself for her help and for spending time she needed for her own work in making suggestions and reviewing the manuscript. Thanks also to Acquisitions Editor, Charlotte Duff, for her patience, particularly in the early stages of the book.

Carolyn Beaumont, my Project Editor, has (metaphorically) wrestled with me, cajoled, prodded and supported me, put up with my grumpiness and generally made sure the book happened. And happen in a way that means you read what I wanted to say and in a way that you can understand it. Thanks Carolyn.

Publishers Acknowledgments

Were proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Development and Editorial

Project Editor: Carolyn Beaumont

Review Editors: Maryanne Phillips, Jennifer Bingham

Acquisitions Editor: Charlotte Duff

Technical Reviewer: Janet McLeod

Editorial Manager: Gabrielle Packman

Production

Layout: Wiley Production Team

Artwork: Wiley Art Studio

Proofreader: Marguerite Thomas

Cartoons: Glenn Lumsden

Indexer: Michael Ramsden

Introduction

W elcome to the world of trivia nights. Like any other production in the entertainment industry, running a trivia night can be hard work but the results are very rewarding.

Remember the board game Trivial Pursuit ? Ive sat around a table, competing against friends or family, hoping the dice would turn up a category that I knew something about. Many of my friends still play and enjoy the game. The difference with trivia nights is that they get you out of the house. Instead of competing at home, youre sitting around a table as part of a team, competing against a bunch of other teams in an event thats part trivia quiz and part social event.

In the past 20 years or so, trivia nights have become a part of the lives of many people. You may have been to a local school or kindergarten fundraising trivia night. You may have played True or False and begged the next table to be generous with your nearly-correct answers. Or you may be among the many members of the community who turn out every week to play trivia with your team at the local pub.