The Cooper Rose, Sunderland
Monday Nights - 8.30 - 10.30
This was advertised as an Interactive Quiz so turning up to The Cooper Rose, I had no idea what to expect. I had messaged the pub before hand to check the quiz was still running (as in the past my experience with Wetherspoons Pubs has been a bit hit and miss). He told me there was 40 teams every week and told me all I needed was a pen...
As soon as he said the quiz was 40 teams, and knowing the venue is a huge Wetherspoons over 2 floors, I knew it was going to be a google fest....and I was right.
The quiz is one of the "Great Big Quiz" presentations that is played in a lot of pubs around the country. Using a projector the questions are read out and displayed on screen. Some rounds involve the screen alone but its all about the presentation.
The format is 7 rounds of ten which seemingly is the same every week (TV and Film, Sport, Famous Faces, Logos, Music, General Knowledge and a Mystery Round). The Famous Faces was particularly brutal last night which I enjoyed until they began "When they were young...." style pictures. The Logo round is as you would imagine and the Music round is worth double the points of other rounds as you need to identify track and artist. So in other words, you get 40 actual quiz questions and 3 rounds of picture or audio.
The questions themselves were a mixed bag. The TV round as painfully straight forward, and I imagine everyone in the pub felt the same but the Sports and GK rounds were littered with some good questions in amongst the chestnuts.
Not a "bad" night as such and the pub was packed, easily the busiest pub quiz in Sunderland and he wasn't exaggerating about having 40 teams!. It is popular and clearly people were enjoying themselves....but if you are reading this blog, then you wouldn't have been one of those people.
The crowd was very young and tended to be massive teams of 8-12 people and the one thing they had in common? All their faces were lit up with the glow of their Smart phones. The cheating was rife and it means that there is no competitive element at all. I expected the cheating but it was far worse than I expected.
For brushing up on chestnuts, a decent music round and a quick and pacey quiz night it serves a purpose. The quizmaster actually presents from BEHIND the big screen and despite some half-baked warning on the screen nothing is done to combat cheating. But then again, with a pub with 40 teams and maybe 200-250 people playing, you can see why the boat doesn't want to be rocked!
I may go back for the questions and I think its quiz my other half will like, I definitely learned a thing or two, but to even consider trying to win without Google/Shazaam (top prize is £25) is futile.
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