Bonus, background, and others

To carry on from thursday night, then …

I’ve got to admit that both the halloween quizzes seemed to go better than I expected, but could’ve been a bit better attended; – it’s early days, again, for the Hutton, and it strikes me that Sue and Zeki have a lot of re-building to do.   Martin, the manager at the King Harold does have the advantage of something of a bigger customer base, although there’s always problems, for any pub these days.

Not least of which is the ongoing credit crunch/recession/what-have-you, which is causing problems everywhere, not least in the pub trade.

I personally believe that there’s a solution to that, but first …

Any body reading this may well have noticed I used different round Five’s for each quiz.

There’s method there.   Quite simply, I was hoping – although not expecting – one or two teams from each pub to get an advantage by going to both.   It’s always something to which out for, considering I’ve had teams travel to each venue.

And usually something I’ve dealt with by making sure I’ve used the same basic quiz, but made sure that a) I have a choice of three or four quizzes – one of which will be picked at random by one of the staff – and b) given the various different start dates for each, the quizzes themselves are a few weeks out of sync.

At the moment, for example, the King Harold has a choice of roughly three or four, numbered from 51, to 60.   Which are identical to the Hutton’s 1 to 10.   Given that the Hutton’s nine months behind, you can see that neither audience should have an idea.

Still with me, folks?

It should keep things confusing, I hope!

However, given that I don’t necessarily have time to write two themed quizzes at Halloween, christmas, or Valentines day, minor changes got made to this year’s Halloween had to get done.   Hence Fear and Terror, at the Harold, and Scary Movies at the Hutton.

You see, Emma, Ria, and the rest of the gang could well have done both!

Hope that helps!

But back to my earlier point about solutions.

Something that I know, and I’d hope that Becky* over at the Hutton, would confirm, is that a bonus question can be very useful.

With the original run of Hutton quizzes, Denise – my first boss, there – had built up the customer base to a good level, which helped the quiz a lot, back in 2001 and 2002.   However, Pete and Chris, when they took over, introduced a twist.   The Bonus Question.

Quite a simple idea, really.   Pete put £5 of the pub’s money – easier for a managed house, than a tenancy, I know – up as a prize, and wrote a very tough question for it.   And believe me, Pete could be very nasty, with those bonus questions.   If a team answered the question correctly, they walked away with an extra fiver.

If no-one got it, the pot would go up by a fiver, the following week.   And another fiver, the week after that.  After that, it was a case of rinse and repeat, until the pot got to £50, which is where Pete capped it.   And the pot would would stay at £50, until some-one won the money, when the prize money would go back down to £5.

It had an huge impact.

We were very specific, you could only have a go at the bonus question, if you paid your pound, and took part in the quiz.   And from what I could see, we got something like five to seven extra teams turning up, and doing the quiz, just to do the bonus question.

It had a big impact, both there, and at the Sir Charles Napier, when Nan introduced one, there, a few months later, both in terms of team numbers, and income.

It also was very re-assuring for many teams, from the feedback I got.

With all of the quizzes I’ve run, and based on my experience I’ve had of attending others, there’s usually two or three teams who’ll feature heavily in the top three positions, on a regular basis.   Tom & Jerry,& Posin’ Joe, over at the King Harold, The No Ideas, and the AKA 47’s, at the first run of the Hutton quiz, The Worlds Smallest Giants and Norfolk & Chance, at the Napier, all spring to mind, in this context.

Most of the teams I’ve talked felt that up against these chaps, they had a tough job, and the bonus question gave them a chance of walking away with some description of prize, even if it was just a fiver.   And considering some of Pete’s monster Rugby questions, or Nan’s intense theological query’s …

Anyway, there’s where I’ll leave it.   Here’s hoping you’ve enjoyed reading it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to write next week’s quiz.

And start the prep work for Christmas …

*  As I always told Cheri, at the King Harold, I’ve always felt more comfy having a bright, perky,good looking, very intelligent, and, above, GOBBY, blonde barmaid on the ramp.

    Becky Burgess is the original Gobby Blonde Barmaid.