So, you want to get more people into your taproom drinking your beer. But how?
Hosting a brewery trivia night (or nights) is an easy and fun way to get your patrons to become brewery regulars and foster a sense of community. From date night to game night, people enjoy getting out and socializing. Playing games is a popular social activity; casual semi-competitive events always draw a crowd. Ultimately, people want to spend time with old and new friends in an engaging environment – and drink good beer!
Why Host a Brewery Trivia Night?
It’s no surprise that people love trivia night. It’s an exciting way to compete with friends in a fun, casual environment. Often, groups of friends will form a team and show up weekly to attend a well-organized bar trivia night.
Trivia games are a reliable way for bar and brewery owners to attract more business on slower nights. Although brewery taprooms have become popular hang-out spaces, they aren’t immune from the notorious weeknight slowdown.
These weekday lulls are precisely why you should consider hosting a brewery trivia night! People love trivia and beer. An exciting team-based social event is all the incentive needed to encourage folks to swing by their favorite venue to decompress after work or to simply get out of the house.
And let’s face it, your brewery taproom is way cooler than that other place down the road serving those “just alright hot wings and discounted domestic lagers.” Craft breweries like yours serve an essential function beyond selling beer; your taproom is critical to building healthy bonds within and across the local community.
By hosting a brewery trivia night (and other brewery games), your brewery can provide great weekly events that give people a wide variety of topics to spark conversation, casual competition, and a fun way to spend an evening.
In addition to being a valuable community activity, trivia nights benefit your brewery’s bottom line! The time patrons spend in your establishment during trivia brings in more money from food and drink purchases while attracting new customers through word of mouth.
Are you wondering how to host a brewery or special bar trivia night? Below, we offer tips and information you can use to start trivia night on the right foot.
Promoting Your Brewery Trivia Night(s)
Now that you’ve decided to host a brewery trivia night let’s talk about the next step: promoting your trivia events.
Whether you’re just getting started or have hosted brewery trivia nights for a while, never underestimate the power “word-of-mouth” has within your local community. Placing flyers and posters in strategic locations around your taproom helps create awareness about your upcoming trivia nights. If you’re partnering with other local businesses, be sure to provide them with flyers and posters that they can display at their locations.
Use your customer mailing list to send occasional emails about upcoming trivia nights, prize details, and information on delicious brews. Posting and updating a list of upcoming events on your brewery website and social media profile home pages is another great way to inform your online visitors and social followers. Inform your serving and bartending staff that brewery trivia night will benefit their tips and sales and encourage them to help promote your trivia night when they talk about weekly specials.
Think about offering a special menu dedicated to your brewery trivia night with trivia-themed features, participating teams, or happy hour-style discounts. You could even brew a specialty beer made just for trivia night!
If your brewery doesn’t have a kitchen, don’t panic. You can offer bar food fare by coordinating with local food trucks and restaurants. Making sure that food is readily available to accompany your trivia night will help encourage your patrons to stay longer, spend more money, and not feel the need to leave for food. When you partner with food trucks and local restaurants, your brewery trivia nights will help grow their business while they help you promote your event.
If you’re considering spending money on advertising, remember that advertising takes thoughtful execution, coordination with other potential local partnerships, and routine effort for an ongoing ad campaign.
However you decide to promote and advertise your brewery trivia night, be sure to include the following information:
- Trivia theme (if any)
- Date, time, location
- Prizes available (try using brewery branded merchandise like T-shirts, hats, glassware, bottle openers)
- Website URL
Bar Trivia Prizes
A note about prizes: don’t cheap out! Digital trivia host experts Buzztime Business offers this advice: trivia players expect great prizes. A single $10 gift card will not go over well with a team of players. Instead of being cheap, be creative. Leverage partnerships with other local businesses for great prizes, offer the winning team a $50 bar tab, free burgers from a food truck, or free tap beer and a giant platter of nachos. Put a team photo on the wall and make a permanent display to honor recurring champions.
Bar Trivia Rules
Another important note is establishing rules for trivia night and making them known to all players. Despite the casual nature of a brewery trivia night, people still want a fair competition and want to understand how the trivia game works. A few of the most common trivia rules include:
- No phones
- Size limit of teams
- Point values for each answer
- Plan of action in the event of a tie
- Time limits
- Use premade answer sheets
Trivia Themes
General knowledge trivia games are always a good time when the trivia questions cover different areas of knowledge and levels of difficulty. Including topics from various eras and areas of knowledge makes your quiz fair to everyone in the room. Theme nights tend to draw a more relaxed crowd and unites patrons with similar interests. For inspiration, you can check out other brewery trivia night questions and pub quiz formats.
General Knowledge Trivia Game
Basic trivia questions and answers can be found online on websites like Trivia Nerd. You can be creative but be sure you have a clear answer and variations you will accept. Here are some general knowledge category ideas:
- History
- Geography
- Literature
- TV
- Music
- Movie Quotes
- Politics
- Human Body
- Science
- Astronomy
Trivia Theme Ideas
Trivia themes are a great way to have a successful trivia night. Consider using these brewery trivia night theme ideas for your “Trivia Tuesdays.”
- General pop culture
- Specific TV or Movies (like The Office or Star Wars)
- Top 40’s song lists
- The 1980’s
- Superheroes
- The Beatles
- Holidays
- Sports (especially great for sports bars)
- Beer Trivia
- Horror Movies
Are Partnerships Worth It?
Yes! Beyond the reasons we’ve already mentioned, partnering with other local businesses is an excellent way to help boost profits for everyone involved and increase foot traffic and local awareness. Ultimately, it helps to build a more positive community.
Like all local businesses, your brewery depends on customers, clients, and their patronage. Brewery taprooms are a popular and essential local community gathering place. Hosting a brewery trivia night will draw a crowd. At the same time, partnerships with other local businesses help generate community awareness and enthusiasm for your brand, beer, and brewery trivia night!
Your community partners can also inspire trivia themes. Partner with or sponsor a local sports league, and your taproom is sure to be a destination post-game. Connecting with local movie theaters can provide you with great prizes for your trivia nights. Another thing to consider is that movie theaters commonly sell alcoholic beverages… is your brewery featured on their tap line? A partnership could seal the deal!
Examples of Brewery Trivia Night Partnerships
- Charities and non-profits. People love donating to a good cause, especially when they get to have fun doing it!
- Local game shops. Geek-themed events make for great trivia themes and can attract a wide and varied crowd. Board and card games and other merchandise can be exciting and fun prizes.
- Food trucks and local restaurants. These partnerships mutually benefit your brewery and their restaurants. It also offers an easy solution for gift cards and provides variety for your patrons—no kitchen required. You could even take it one step further and create fun beer and food pairings.
- Local and professional sports leagues. Whether your city/town has a professional team or not, there are local non-professional teams and events. Consider sponsoring a local team and hosting a sports-themed brewery trivia night. If there are pro teams, contact their community partner programs. Tickets to professional game events can be used as prizes.
- Local museums, libraries, and historical societies/events. History trivia themes are always popular, and partnerships promote the arts and education.
The possibilities are endless. Partnering with other local businesses helps promote both brands, encourage community interest, and offer a variety of prizes, which helps to keep drawing a crowd for your bar trivia night!
Professional or DIY Trivia Night?
Alright, so you’ve decided you’re going to host a trivia night… but what does hosting a trivia night take? Do you hire an outside company to MC the event, or do you do it all in-house? If you hire someone to host your brewery trivia night, how much should you pay? What if it’s not a company but a solo MC? How reliable are they? On the other hand, how do you host a trivia night without an outside company? Who’s going to MC the event? Where do you get your trivia questions, and are they even accurate?
Make no mistake: it takes work to ensure that trivia night is fun, easy-going, and successful. People love it for precisely those reasons. Let’s look at a few things to consider.
Pros & Cons: Professional vs. DIY Trivia Host
- Cost. Hiring a bar trivia night host makes things easier for you because they do all the event work while you provide the location venue and keep the beer flowing. However, they can be costly. Doing it all in-house seems much cheaper, but it’s even more work, time, and energy on your side.
- Dedicated MC. Going pro makes a lot of sense here. A great MC can be the difference between a popular, well-attended brewery trivia night or a total flop. Also, the MC is responsible for trivia questions and making sure they have the right answers. But maybe you have a charismatic server or bartender who loves to put on a show. You could potentially save a lot by hiring your own staff to MC for the night. So long as they’re reliable and dedicated, this could be a great solution.
- Trivia questions. Ask yourself whether you have the time to cultivate a fair list of questions and fact-check all the answers. When you hire a professional, the work is already done for you. You won’t have to worry about the details if they are a reputable trivia service. Setup becomes far more difficult if you’re going to do everything yourself. Finding good questions, accurate answers and balancing the obscure with the obvious takes a lot of work, time, and energy.
Give Useless Knowledge the Home it Deserves with Brewery Trivia Nights
Trivia night is among the most popular bar and brewery games because it nails the things most everyone loves—social engagement, inclusivity, competition, teamwork, fun, and a chance to show off useless knowledge!
Themed trivia nights can bring in different groups of people and help keep your brewery taproom busy, even on those dreaded slow nights.
Partnering with other local businesses can help grow the local community by spreading brand awareness while offering an opportunity to increase profits for your brewery and your partners.
Now that you know how to host a trivia night at a bar, what’s stopping you? Don’t miss out on more craft beer and brewery news and tips on the RWS blog.
Featured image and post images licensed via Pxhere and Pixabay
