I’ve been a pub-quiz fanatic since the time I was allowed to enter pubs, and a trivia nut since I first beat my dad at Trivial Pursuit.
It turns out I am far from alone. Once a week, dozens of the pubs around the UAE draw in hundreds of punters with a free trivia night that promises competition (among and within teams!), laughs and the opportunity to learn which nation grows the most pineapples, and other random facts.
The quiz season resumes this week with many quizmasters back in town after the summer break.
Kevin Southam, one of the quizmasters at the long-runing Fibber McGee’s quiz — legendary for its clay round — sums up the fun well.
“A quiz is about testing your knowledge but it’s also about having fun — if the questions are too hard it’s no fun and if they are too easy it’s neither a test nor fun!”
We turned the tables and set them the questions — about categories, how they handle cheaters and what the prizes up for grabs are.
Now the only question is: Which one are you going to try out?
Easy Tiger quiz, Fibber McGee’s, Tuesdays
There are two quizmasters at this legendary quiz famous for its sculpture round. Kevin (an operations manager) and Ali (a teacher) take it in turns to host on alternate weeks. “We call ourselves Dubai’s best alternative quiz as we try to include lots of different types of rounds to appeal to a wide range of people.”
The prize for the winning team is dinner for two with a special prize of dinner for six on the last Tuesday of each month. “In addition we give away 15 free drinks vouchers each week, including prizes for the best team name, and a bottle of beverage in our night-ending ‘play your cards right’ round. The vouchers are redeemable in Fibbers anytime,” says Kevin.
He says the average team size is 4-6 people, but there’s no limit on team sizes “in fact a few weeks ago we had a team of just two people who won!”
“Each week we let people know that the Easy Tiger Quiz is a test of the speed of their brains not of their internet connection! We encourage people not to cheat by looking the answer up on their devices, and also by including rounds that you can’t cheat on, for example our weekly creative round, where you have to create something from clay based on a weekly theme, and a Family Fortunes-themed round where you have to guess the most popular answer (not necessarily the right answer) to a question. But if particular team persistently cheats then we have ways of making sure they don’t win.”
This quiz has a 7/10 toughness rating, he says, with “questions that really make you think”, as well as multiple choice questions, thematic rounds, anagrams and music.
The categories: general knowledge, family fortunes, theme questions (recently, the olympics), famous faces, movie posters, music, the creative round, and occasionally speed anagrams and dingbats. “We end the night with Play Your Cards Right, where everyone can join in.”
Bonus round: The average price of a pint and burger is Dh90. The quiz takes place on a Tuesday night which is also ladies night at Fibber Magee’s, so all women get four free drinks on quiz night.
The Huddle, CityMax Al Barsha, Mondays
Lars Hansen and his co-host Mark are both teachers at Dubai Academy in Al Barsha — so they know how to mark those papers! Watch out here, as there’s a round on “academics”. There are no rules apart from a minimum team size of four. They rate the quiz at 8/10 on the toughness scale. Up for grabs for first place is a Dh400 voucher for F&B. Second place gets Dh300 and Dh200 goes to third place. There are also instant prizes to be won on the night, which usually sees around 8-10 teams competing.
“It’s a five-round quiz that starts with a round focusing on questions of local and international news of the week, followed with a music round and lastly three rounds on academics and pop culture.”
Bonus question: What’s the average price of a pint and burger? Dh40 and a burger for Dh50.
Spike Bar in Emirates Golf Club, Mondays
Quizmaster Phil Richardson is a long-term resident of Dubai and former presenter at Dubai 92 and Rock Radio UAE. He is now the GM of Richardson Events and Advertising, when he’s not coming up with brain-befuddling questions.
The winner gets Dh400, Dh300 for second prize and there is a goodie bag from the pro shop for third place. There’s also a members accumulator draw. “Currently there are two draws on; one for Dh10,000 and one for Dh8,500.”
Solo players are welcome. “We have a handicap system in place. 4-5 people in the team are zero handicap, 6 is minus 1 point, 7 is minus 2 etc. Smaller teams get points added; 3 persons is plus 1; 2 is plus 2 and we have a regular contestant who enters the quiz on his own and has won on his plus 3 handicap.”
The night has five rounds of 10 questions, plus teams have a choice of a joker round, which is double points where 60 points are available — but if you can get to even 50 you have a very good chance of winning, says Richardson.
“I have run quizzes for many years and try to pitch the quiz so that 60 per cent is fairly achievable. I rate my quiz as a 7.5 on the Brain Ache chart of quizzes.”
Bonus question: What’s the average price of a pint and burger? About Dh43.
Nell Gwynne, Marina Byblos Hotel, Tuesdays
Alan Hall works for the hotel full-time as their resident DJ and quizmaster at the British themed bar.
There are five rounds — “entertainment, general knowledge, music, picture round and something random each week, such as sport, history, geography and so forth”.
Teams can win a prize for each round, which is in voucher form and are for various food and drink offers. The overall prize is a Dh500 voucher, which 10-14 teams battle for on any given week.
Like all the quizmasters we spoke to, you’re supposed to use your brain, not someone else’s. “The use of any device connected to the internet is banned,” says Hall.
Toughness factor? “I try and make the questions not too hard, and not too easy — so I’d say 7 out of 10.”
Bonus question: What’s the average price of a pint and burger? “We have happy hour from 12 noon up to 8pm, drinks are Dh25 and on Tuesday night you can grab a curry for Dh45 as it’s curry night. A pint after happy hour is around Dh40.”
Carter’s, Wafi, Mondays
Shane Craven is a facilities manager and brain-buster-in-chief here, which has some of the best prizes we’ve seen — including one for the losers!
First place gets Dh700 in vouchers, second place Dh300, third place Dh200 in vouchers. The bonus prize for last place is a Dh50 voucher. Vouchers are allocated to a different restaurant each week.
The maximum team size is six; after that, points are deducted.
This is a 6-8 out of ten level quiz. “Subjects vary each week so quizzers usually get a round they like.”
Those six rounds include three standard ones — picture, music and wipe-out — and three varied rounds from geography, TV to unusual rounds such as top ten and ‘our survey said’. It’s a relatively small venue but anything up to 15 teams and on average eight teams compete.
Bonus: There is 30 per cent off food and beverage when playing the quiz.
McGettigan’s WTC, Mondays
Jono and Remix Rich from Dubai 92 are the quiz hosts. They work on radio during the week, and fill their weekends with DJing gigs. Not only does this quiz have unique prizes, but there are also points for spies.
Prizes change every week but include tickets to Atlantis Aquaventure waterpark, hops for a month, brunches, lunches, bar tabs and Brainscape escape room game admission for six people.
There is a policy of maximum six per team, otherwise you have to split your table up. Jono and Rich take cheating very seriously. “Anyone caught on their phones will get zero for the round, and if you report a team for cheating, we award you half of that team’s overall points as a bonus for helping us spot the cheaters.”
Most weeks they have in excess of 20 teams, and a typical winning score is 45-50 out of 70.
“Rich prides himself in writing impossible general knowledge questions,” says Jono. “Most of the other rounds are pretty manageable, although sometimes my accent leads them to be more difficult than they should be. I would give it about 7 out of 10 on difficulty.”
There are six rounds: general knowledge, rapid, pop test, visual, a specialist round and a double points audio round.
McGettigan’s Abu Dhabi
Wednesdays
When he’s not running club nights in Marbella, Jon Besant is full-time DJ and promoter at some of Dubai’s top clubs (Zero Gravity, Cirque le soir, 360, Tribeca). He’s got a great idea for neutralising cheaters. “I make everybody put their mobile phones in a bowl. It makes them social and stops them cheating.” As for cheaters? “I kick them out, of course. I’ve got all the waiters spying for me.”
Prizes here are brunch for four, Dh300 off your bill and dinner for four, for the first three places respectively.
In the four months he’s been doing it, it’s grown from four to 20 teams, with a top score of about 90 points, says Besant.
“There’s some easy, some hard. Some people don’t get some of the questions. There’s no trick questions but the last round is what we call nearest and dearest — for example, how tall is the Eiffel Tower? Whoever gets closest gets all the points.”
There are six rounds: True or false, name the logo, pop quiz, name the star picture round, TV and movies, and nearest and dearest. That’s a bonus, where you could be in last place and end up winning.
Bonus points for this: Everybody gets two for one on food and drinks on the night.
Dubliner’s, Le Meridien Dubai, Tuesdays
Husband and wife Martin and Jo are the quizmasters here; they are entertainers and musicians, so it’s no surprise the quiz draws questions and ideas from television quiz shows — think Wheel of Fortune, Mastermind and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
Prizes depend on the score chart and it’s a first come, first served. They include brunch for two at The Dubliner’s, a bottle of house beverage and a Dh100 F&B voucher. There are five rounds, starting with a picture round. The third round is a table question round, different every week — this week’s was ‘Only Foals and Horse’ and the round was about famous horses.
Final score: “The last week of every month there is a mega quiz night whereby the top scorer for the month receives a voucher worth Dh500. There’s an accumulator and the winner of the top scorer every month wins a mega brunch.” There are on an average 8 to 10 teams.
It’s a 7/10 level quiz, and it’s “very varied and there is a question for everybody,” says Martin.
Bonus question: What’s the average price of a pint and burger? A pint is Dh40, and a burger is Dh56.
Hard Rock Cafe, Mondays
Mark Lloyd is a presenter on The Ticket, Dubai Eye 103.8, when he’s not testing you in this music-themed quiz. On September 5 — what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 70th birthday — it relaunches for the season with a Queen-themed quiz. Moustaches, real or fake, are encouraged.
First and third prize are from Hard Rock Cafe Dubai, whilst the second prize is sponsored by Brainscape Games Dubai. “In addition, we often work with concert promoters and theme the quiz around a particular artist who is performing in town that week,” says Lloyd, who encourages up to six people in a team. “Last season on average we had 18 teams entering each week.”
“If you know your music from the ’60s through to today’s top 20 hits, you’ll not have a problem. I would rate it on a difficulty scale at an eight out of ten.”
There are five rounds: The Hard Rock Top 10 (trivia), Marky’s Monster Mash up (a music round), in focus (a picture round), Spin the Decade (where one person spins a wheel to select a decade and everyone has to answer 10 questions from that decade) and finally, a surprise round, “which could be anything.”
Bonus question: What’s the average price of a pint and burger? “Dh101, although we always have combo meals available.”
Nezesaussi, Al Manzil, Mondays
This sport’s bar’s manager Andre Grove does the questioning here, rating it seven out of 10 for difficulty. They recently also had a superhero-themed quiz, so keep your eye out for specials. Prizes include pool access and brunch vouchers for the hotel, and there’s a maximum of six people per team. There are four rounds, including one picture round. Categories are general with current themes.
Eloquent Elephant, Taj Dubai, Mondays
Ciaran Fox runs pub quizzes here and at the Dhow and Anchor pub at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. He’s also a singer — Rat Pack style, and kindly marks all the papers, instead of asking them to be passed around.
The prizes are all vouchers for brunch at the pub, Dh600 for first place, Dh400 for second and Dh300 for third.
“Rules are of course no phones, no Shazam. We recommend no more than six people per team — as your prize will be split more ways if you win!”
He rates the quiz as a 7/10. “The knockout round is the hardest... if you answer one question incorrectly, you get no points for the whole round!”
This quiz has six rounds — “two brainteasers, such as dingbats, anagrams, capital cities, very variable”. It kicks off with a picture round, one music round, one general knowledge and one knockout, which is also general knowledge.
Bonus question: What’s the average price of a pint and burger? The Wagyu burger is Dh99, the Mighty Elephant Burger is Dh125 and an average pint is Dh45.
