As a wily veteran of two pub trivia locations in San Francisco and an occasional purveyor of other events when traveling, I’d like to compare the three formats I’ve become the most familiar with: Geeks Who Drink, Trivia Mafia, and SpeedQuizzing. Consider this a pub trivia personality quiz.
At the end of this post is an appendix detailing the specifics of how each of these trivia formats operates, but let’s get straight into the comparison using five criteria.
Difficulty: Geeks Who Drink is by far the most difficult trivia, with the other two closer to each other in question quality. I believe Mafia is a bit harder because it’s mainly free response, while SpeedQuizzing‘s focus on immediate, tappable answers makes it easier to guess your way to success. If you want a wide-ranging challenge, Geeks is your friend. Otherwise, you’ll want to pick between Mafia and Speed based on other factors.1It’s worth noting that quizmasters do seem to have some freedom in how they select questions, so your mileage may vary. This has been my experience, but you may find bars that run it differently.
Variety: Geeks takes this category as well. Speed is full of random knowledge, but the question types are always the same. Geeks will change things up (e.g. “Pick the option that doesn’t fit”), and also has both visual and music rounds. The visual rounds may have scenes from TV or movies, or could contain full videos you watch and respond to. The music round may be a “guess the song from this clip”, but they’ve also done mash-ups or weird augmentation.2I don’t like the reguar music round because I’m terrible at it, but I can’t deny it adds variety to the experience. Again, Mafia is in between.
Themes: You may not like themes, because it can box you into a round containing information you have no hope of knowing. If so, Speed is the best option. If you want theme-heavy rounds, I’d say Mafia is actually best here. Their themes tend to be “traditional”—think Geography, History, Sports, those Trivial Pursuit categories. Geeks is in the middle where many themes are less specific. They tend to be on the side of abstract Jeopardy! categories, where every answer contains the letters “RET”, for example. They act as hints or something a little fun.
Pace and Focus: All three formats tend to run right around 2 hours; that seems to be standard for bar trivia. However, they divide that time differently. In Geeks and Mafia, you can be a bit more casual because you play an entire round before officially submitting your answers. People need to be paying attention, but it’s easier to chat the entire time. The pace feels consistent and measured, although you do need to work a little harder to get people to pay attention at times. Speed is more focused while gameplay is happening. However, each round lasts about a half hour, then you get ten or fifteen minutes of break time where all the pressure is off and everyone can talk without the background of trivia. Logistically, Geeks and Speed require more attention because there is a designated team device responsible for all questions submissions. Mafia allows teams to work on their own phones.
Vibes: This is based solely on the few quizmasters I’ve had. Our SpeedQuizzing host is excellent and likes to walk around, meet all the teams, and is generally a friendly and fun person. She really acts like a host. Our Geeks Who Drink quizmaster was also great, but more aloof. He ran a great game, had a wry sense of humor, but all the teams felt separated. I’d give the nod to Speed here. Meanwhile, almost every Trivia Mafia game I’ve been to has had an adequate or mediocre host who just gets the job done. I have no idea if they simply have lower standards, or we’ve been lucky with our local spots.
I’ve had several months to consider this on my own, and discuss with everyone I play with. Most weeks I enjoy going to SpeedQuizzing because it’s low stress and runs smoothly. I appreciate that simplicity, but there are times where I have a hankering for the subtlety and difficulty of Geeks Who Drink. It creates broader discussion, the opportunity to problem-solve, a wider variety of interesting questions, and we always felt extremely accomplished when we made the podium. I wish I had the option to mainly attend Speed, with the occasional trip to a Geeks event.
One recent event that helped me appreciate Geeks and Mafia more was writing trivia for someone’s birthday party. That format of round-based trivia with scoring at the end is natural and easy to do in a familiar group: it transfers to paper, using themes is natural for a special event, and it’s simple to adjust the pacing based on the room. It’s a standard way of running trivia for good reason, but I appreciate the shakeup that SpeedQuizzing provides. It’s certainly made me think about what I enjoy about the trivia experience.
Format Details
Geeks Who Drink
This was the format used at both Anchor Brewing — I played here most Wednesdays with a group of friends before they ceased operating in August 2023 — and The Lab in St. Paul (which also appears to have shuttered.) It had seven rounds, each with eight questions that were typically free response, but could have multiple choice. Answer types could vary as well: for example, put in one answer for one point, or put in two answers for two points, where you get no points if only one of your two is correct.
Four of the rounds were worth 8 points, and the other three were worth 16 points. You had a double points bonus you could use once prior to a round being closed and graded, so the smart move was to use it on one of the sixteen point rounds.
Most every round had a theme, with the final round being “Random Trivia”. Typically the second round was music, and the fourth or fifth round was a visual round often centered on movies or television.
After the conclusion of each round, that round is graded then scores are updated. Some rounds had a bonus question which would be answered “in person” around the quizmaster. The fastest correct answer got a free beer.
There was a designated team device where all answers had to be submitted, but everyone else could use their phone to “spectate” and see the questions as they pop up.3You needed a game code to go online at your location, which allowed us to play a round while on our honeymoon the other year.
Trivia Mafia
I’ve played this format in a few bars and breweries back in Minnesota. There are two halves to the game, each with four rounds of five questions each. You complete the first half of the game without a pause, then all four of those rounds are scored. In the second half of the game, the setup is the same except for the inclusion of a bonus. Once you’ve played the final four rounds, you select one round in which you are the most confident. You then assign points—5, 4, 3, 2, and 1—to each question in that round based on your confidence in the answer.
The rounds are often themed as well. I believe there is a healthy mix of free response and multiple choice.
SpeedQuizzing
This is our new trivia format at Ballast Point, which has replaced Anchor as our Wednesday night spot. This game is made of three rounds. Each round has fifteen questions. The first round’s questions are worth 2 points each; then 4 points each in the second; and 6 points each in the third.
A single team uses a single device to answer the questions. There are a few types of questions:
- Letters Questions require only the first letter of the answer (and “The” never counts!)
- Numbers questions are a number.
- Multiple choice questions are multiple choice.
- Sequence questions ask you to put several answers in the desired order.
- A question that includes a picture can take the form of a Letters, Numbers, or Multiple choice question. Letters is most common, though.
Teams submit their answers on their device using an app connected to a local WiFi network, and responses are graded immediately, and a live scoreboard is displayed between questions. You always get 1 bonus point for having the fastest correct answer. There are typically no themes across any rounds or questions.
- 1It’s worth noting that quizmasters do seem to have some freedom in how they select questions, so your mileage may vary. This has been my experience, but you may find bars that run it differently.
- 2I don’t like the reguar music round because I’m terrible at it, but I can’t deny it adds variety to the experience.
- 3You needed a game code to go online at your location, which allowed us to play a round while on our honeymoon the other year.