Pub quizzes: The answer is...

After more than 20 years pub quizzes have grown in variety and professionalism.

Quizzes are a relative newcomer in the history of pub games - at least we have yet to find evidence that medieval ale houses played "Name That Madrigal" or had picture rounds of "Spot the Saint". But over the past 20 years they have become firmly established as a great way to pull in the customers on a quiet winter's night.

According to last summer's Publican Market Report​ survey, 44 per cent of pubs host a quiz, putting them a close third behind darts and pool in terms of participative entertainment.

Yet the pub quiz could easily have been a passing fad. Quizzers can quickly become bored with old formats - and there's nothing so annoying as the same team of egg-heads walking away with the top prize every week.

What has stopped pub-goers losing interest, though, is that the quiz has evolved into a widening variety of forms that keep quiz regulars on their mental toes, attract new challengers and give everyone a chance of winning.

Pub quizzes have also become more sophisticated as firms have developed them as a professional service. While once the average quiz night would have involved paying a local quiz master £50 for a couple of hours of the usual rounds, today's licensee can choose from a selection of well-presented quiz packages containing everything necessary for an evening's entertainment.

Using one of these companies can also ease the organisational burden for the busy publican and can work out cheaper, costing as little as a few pounds a night.

Redtooth currently claims to be the largest supplier of pub quizzes in the UK, delivering more than 4,000 kits a week to pubs up and down the country, and it has seen record growth over the past four years.

"We identified a gap in pub quiz entertainment several years ago," says director Steve Saul. "The pub business was crying out for a well thought through and professional quiz package, something which would save the licensee valuable time, was cost effective and which would improve the quality of a night out for customers. We took the hassle out of organising pub quizzes."

Entertaining questions​

Redtooth has also introduced imaginative innovations to the traditional quiz such as Fun Fortunes, a format that uses its own weekly surveys to source the answers to entertaining questions in the style of a well-known TV show.

It also supplies and manages inter-pub tournaments for regional brewers and national operators, and these are growing in popularity too as companies see the benefits.

Hardys & Hansons, in Nottinghamshire, and Fuller's, in the London area, are two companies that have run successful quiz competitions with Redtooth recently.

Hardys & Hansons' 2005 Quiz League was the brewer's first quiz competition to cover its entire managed estate. Sponsored by Carling it involved 73 pubs and had a top prize of £4,000.

Most pub quizzes invite teams of four or more, but on this occasion Redtooth came up with the novel idea of pubs having teams of only two players in the early stages of the tournament. At the end of a six-week league the top two teams from each house united to represent the pub in the area finals.

The grand final at the Beechdale in Nottingham was hosted by TV prankster Jeremy Beadle (pictured with the winning team from the Paddock in Derby)​, a director of Redtooth.

"We have done lots of quizzes before but this was the first time that we had done one company-wide," says Hardys & Hansons' operations manager Peter Crabbe. "We were flexible as to which night it was run at pub level and it worked well in terms of building business on quiet nights.

"We were very happy with it - we have the evidence that it worked. The finals were massive nights."

Fuller's was looking for something a little different from the traditional quiz and wanted to involve customers who enjoy a challenge but do not necessarily want to take part in conventional quizzes. It also wanted to make sure it was not always the same quiz teams that won. So it chose Redtooth's Fun Fortunes as the basis for the Fuller's Super Quiz.

The competition ran in 40 managed pubs over an eight-week period and was sponsored by Carlsberg and KP.

Comedian Al "Pub Landlord" Murray teamed up with Matt Dawson, England World Cup rugby hero and a team captain on the BBC's Question of Sport, to host the final at the George IV in Chiswick.

The winning team, from the Castle in Harrow, walked away with the top prize of £1,000.

"It was a superb night," says Elton Mouna, Fuller's drinks marketing manager. "I have no idea how we will top this next year but we are going to start planning again soon to see if we can."

Case study: the Cabin, Sedgley, West Midlands​

The Cabin is a typical 60s-built community pub with a lounge and a public bar nestling in the middle of a large housing estate. Licensee Pete Guise has been full time in the trade since 1988 and has run the pub for the past three years.

"The challenge for us was to attract new customers on our traditionally quiet nights - particularly Sundays," he says. "When I came here the Cabin had the usual darts, dominoes, pool and football on TV and was also experimenting with its own homespun quiz. I had started using a Redtooth quiz package at my previous pub and could see the potential here."

So the pub began using Redtooth's "It's Your Round" quiz and saw immediate results. Sunday night trade was soon showing a 100 per cent increase.

"One of the real benefits was that for the first time our lounge regulars mixed in with the bar crowd, and everyone had a great time," says Pete. "People from the lounge began to use the bar for the first time and vice versa. Word soon spread on the estate and new customers came in across the week to discover they had a nice pub on their doorstep."

Following the success of the Sunday night quiz, Pete is looking forward to building his business further by turning over Tuesday nights to a completely different kind of quiz using Redtooth's Fun Fortunes.

Cabin's licensee Pete Guise (top, right) has boosted trade with a quiz

Big names such as Matt Dawson, pictured at Fuller's Super Quiz, are becoming involved in the grand final stages of pub quizzes