TQA Quiz Trek 2013 - #5

 #5

Fitzgeralds, Sunderland

Thursday Nights

When I first moved to Sunderland last year, the quiz on a Thursday Night in Fitzgeralds was my favourite quiz in the city. There was a change of quizmaster and after attending a few quizzes here late last year where attendances were not great, I stopped going. This week I decided to head back to the quiz for the first time this year.

The first thing to mention is that Fitzgeralds is an excellent pub. In the heart of the city centre it is friendly, welcoming and serves a great range of real ale. The quiz starts at 9pm on a Thursday Night and this week there around 9-10 teams taking part each, apart from mine, with about 4-5 players in. It takes place in its own room and the area is quite small.

The quiz format is very simple. 20 written questions on General Knowledge, 20 pictures followed by two 10 question rounds on a different theme each week. There are tiebreak questions at the end of every round and these are usually ones based on numbers to guess at (populations, years, dates etc) to give everyone a chance. Beer tokens are on offer for the tiebreak and cash for the quiz, as well as a rolling jackpot.

The first round has a good mix of questions, and even though I prefer a pub quiz to be delivered by the quiz master throughout, the written round at least allows more time to think and talk about the questions. I don't think much cheating goes on in the quiz so extra time does not result in extra cheating which is one great thing about this quiz in Fitzgeralds.

My only real issue with the quiz is the picture round. 20 points on offer here with only 40 on offer elsewhere in the quiz. That means a third of the quiz is pictures. I enjoy some picture rounds and indeed enjoy the one here, but with a small team there is always the chance of falling way behind on pictures as a big team always gives you better hopes in a picture round.

The last two rounds this week were 80's music followed by 80's films, the films were fairly straight forward but I struggled with the music round. Splitting it up would have been better as there were teams even younger than me who had blank looks on the last round. It was all very close until then! I like themed rounds but two 80's based rounds was a bit of a let down.

Overall though the quiz is well run, friendly, plenty of prizes to winner and one the better pub quiz nights in Sunderland. Worth a look.