NICK ROGERS
Q: “I’m putting a team together for a trivia night this week. Wanna go?”
A: “Oh, I’m not a trivia person.”
Christopher Short has found folks’ underestimation of knowledge they tote in their brains to be, as they say in trivia circles, the MCWA … or Most Common Wrong Answer.
“There will always be something you can answer that nobody else on your team can, and you will leave feeling like the whole night would’ve been for nothing if you hadn’t been there,” said Short, a Crawfordsville resident who has been chief editor for Geeks Who Drink (GWD) — a pub-trivia company with more than 700 venues in 42 states — for more than six years. “A big part of my job is to put the answer on the tip of your tongue with subtle hinting in the question.”
Although there are no GWD venues in Crawfordsville, Short has brought the company’s pub-trivia experience to a handful of local community nonprofits with which he’s affiliated.
After a successful July trivia night at the Carnegie Museum of Montgomery County, he’s hosting a similar event at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 7, at St. John’s Episcopal Church to support its food security outreach.
Teams of up to six will compete in eight rounds of questions spanning a bevy of topics and including audio rounds (music, movie or TV clips) and a visual round (identifying photos or images). No team? No problem. Just show up, enjoy a drink and maybe you could lead your team to trivia glory.
“We always have free agents who turn up and everybody’s friendly,” Short said. “This is a great event for singles or young couples without kids near Crawfordsville to come out and meet new folks.
“Plus, it’s a way for people to see what I do for a living,” he added.
Short serves as final arbiter on questions written for use in GWD’s daily quizzes, and his annual tally runs higher than 20,000 questions. His bona fides? Look no further than his six-game “Jeopardy!” appearance in 2011, a run whose support from Crawfordsville business he fondly remembers.
When it comes to GWD questions, Short maintains a consistent tone and tenor, punching up and taming down when necessary.
“I always say we’re primarily an entertainment company where trivia is our medium to entertain people — sort of a comedy show where you also get to show off what you know,” Short said.
Nick Rogers lives in Lafayette with his wife, Abby. When he isn’t coordinating communications for Purdue Extension, he’s likely at the movies, competing at (or hosting) trivia, or otherwise out and about enjoying greater Lafayette.
