My Day at the World Quizzing Championships

It was an early start on Saturday as I headed North to the Edinburgh venue of the World Quizzing Championships. After leaving home around 5.45am I arrived in Edinburgh just after 8am via train and found the Voodoo Rooms venue pretty easily, an excellent location being so close to the Station. After a bite to eat and morning tea I arrived at the venue again at the start time and began to meet several quizzers I have been in touch with via facebook. I was not sure what to expect with this being my first major quizzing event but I felt at ease from the off as everyone was so welcoming.

The venue was indeed perfect, a very classy building with excellent field and quiz scene regular Brian Pendreigh had put a lot of effort into making the day a success and despite a few no-shows, it was a very enjoyable day all round!

The WQC itself began promptly with 2 sessions in all.....4 papers of 30 questions in each with breaks half way and at the end for marking. To be honest the time flew over and before I knew it the WQC was over. Well, they do say time flies when you are having fun! The questions in the paper really got the brain going, were superbly written and proved very difficult but to be honest, that is what I was expecting but I did not expect to enjoy a quiz so much when I was not scoring highly.

With this being my first major quizzing event I knew I would score low. Although when I do buy the usual GP questions I score better than I would imagine, I knew at the venue I was likely to struggle and on the world stage too. I set myself a target of what I would be happy with and exceeded it so I consider in parts to be more than pleased with my score. There were a lot of experienced quizzers there with years on me who are far far better than I am, so I knew I struggle in comparison but I thought the quiz gave me a good test, gave me some experience of top flight quizzing and certainly surprised me with what I knew.

What happens at such events is that your lowest score gets dropped, and I already had it in my mind that the Science paper would be my discard but I surprised myself by it being my second highest score of the day. Funny how things work out! I also gave a good performance in sport with only 5 scores in the venue bettering mine but I knew this would be my strongest. I struggled badly on the World and History Paper but certainly learnt a lot.

Now I know the standard I know where I need to work on and year by year I hope to raise my performance. Due mainly to finances, I won't be able to make it to all the GP's year round but certainly now I have the motivation to attend more.


What followed the main quiz was the Max Thomson Cup/Scottish Team Championship. (Max was a regular Scottish quizzer who sadly passed away recently and Brian who had been a close friend has organised this as a very fitting tribute to a keen quizzer). Me and my other half were placed in a team with two very friendly quizzers. My initial fear was that I would not be able to contribute to the team with such high level quizzers involved but once things got running the two part quiz was one of my finest quizzing performances at any level.

Tony Gold ran the first half which involved some tough pictures, music themed rounds  and around 40 questions. We did very well indeed and from my calculations of overall scores were were second in this quiz to the team who won the overall title by only one point (if I would have got the Jubilee and Olympic concerts correct it would have been a tie) but the main thing was the team worked together and everyone was giving good contributions.

The second part of the afternoon was a quiz ran by Colin Crukshanks which involved 21 rounds of between 2-4 questions which you handed in straight away and he marked meaning you got constant feedback. I have never played in such a format before but it worked wonder. You were also given a sheet to mark down how you and other teams were doing. We did well again here.

Brian's team won the event easily but we took a proud joint second place in what was easily the most enjoyable team quiz I have ever been a part of!

All in all the WQC was very enjoyable and as I have said by far and away the most enjoyable quiz I have been a part of. Everyone was friendly, the Voodoo Rooms was a great venue and the quizzing was superb. A big thanks to all organiser and especially those behind the running of a venue in Edinburgh. I hope to make this an annual event!