Tapped was filled with chatter as the host’s voice rang out over a sea of full tables Oct. 25.
“What’s the name of the killer clown in Stephen King’s ‘It’?” Cher Scheibe asked, the first question in the “Scary Movies” category.
For almost two minutes, the 18 participating teams had the opportunity to discuss the question before raising a small chalkboard with their answer.
“All right, time’s up, boards up,” Scheibe said.
He noted the winners before moving on to the next question in the category.
Scheibe said she has been a regular host twice a month for about six months. She said not long after Tapped opened last October, they started having trivia nights. At Tapped, trivia night takes place at 7:30 p.m. every Tuesday and typically ends around 9 p.m.
“I think they do trivia just to get the crowd involved, to get people excited,” she said.
Scheibe said the winner gets a $50 gift certificate. She said she thinks the nights with trivia are busier than other nights and draw in a wider variety of people.
“Everyone loves trivia. It’s like a huge trend in the U.S. and globally,” she said.
She said nearly every town in the U.S. holds a trivia night at least once a week. In Moscow, trivia nights are held at multiple locations throughout the week, she said. She said these games benefit both the businesses and the public.
“It’s just a fun time to get a team together, eat, drink,” she said.
Scheibe said when she runs trivia, she creates categories and themes that sometimes reflect events or holidays, such as the “Scary Movies’” category. She said part of running trivia is finding and vetting questions to make sure they are both correct and do not have more than one answer.
With both the University of Idaho and Washington State University so close this can be especially difficult, she said.
“People are smart around this area,” Scheibe said.
She said people have different interests, and part of winning is about creating the right team with a wide range of knowledge. She said in addition there is often a mixture of college students and locals of older and younger generations. She said she chooses categories that appeal to many different groups of people, since not everyone will know the same information.
“It’s like a good mixture of people that are doing it,” she said.
Scheibe said since people are serious about trivia she has to be serious as well, especially in relation to questions about science. She said once, during a science-themed round, there was a major controversy.
“They’ll always find a loophole around it (the question),” she said.
Scheibe said there are other times when it has become so rowdy they almost needed a bouncer to take care of the situation. Overall, she said it is a night for people to share their knowledge and enjoy a night out, she said.
Nina Rydalch can be reached at [email protected]