A few weeks ago, as my roommates and I compared calendars, we realized our most anticipated social events weren’t bar crawls or birthday bashes—they were trivia nights.
This fall, several bars on and off-campus are hosting weekly trivia nights, including the Night Owl, Something in the Water Brewing Co., Stooley’s Café, Brass Pub, Daft Brewing, Queen’s Pub (QP), Clark Hall Pub, and The Grad Club. The activity’s experiencing a recent surge in popularity among students, despite having been a pub staple for years. Students are embracing trivia because of its structured social activity, a casual vibe, and lowered expectations around alcohol consumption.
Trivia isn’t new in Kingston. Daft Brewing has been hosting weekly trivia on Wednesdays for nearly four years, according to Owner Adam Rondeau in a statement to The Journal. “Trivia has always been popular. We’re completely full more often than not,” Rondeau wrote. Trivia is a staple for Daft, which Rondeau describes as “perhaps one of the OG [trivia hosts].”
Students are one type of Kingstonian attracted to trivia, where the average, 100 weekly participants at Daft’s trivia nights, Rondeau estimates 25 per cent are students. The average participant is “probably non-student, but there [are] definitely students there every week,” Rondeau wrote.
Students contribute to the trivia hype in Kingston.
“Trivia nights are always [busy] for us,” Something in the Water’s General Manager Nadra Docteur wrote in a statement to The Journal. “Now with students back in town, there are definitely more attendees.”
Anticipating Kingston’s greater interest in trivia Something in the Water hosts trivia on Monday nights. “Trivia fits well into our schedule as there are other establishments that host trivia on different nights of the week,” Docteur wrote. She estimated that about 50 per cent of attendees each week are students.
“Since my arrival at Something in the Water four months ago, I’ve definitely noticed an uptick in student attendance,” Docteur wrote in regards to trivia nights. “It’s great to see.”
For establishments closer to the heart of the student neighbourhood, trivia nights are extremely popular. “Before September, we [asked students] to please make reservations so [they] don’t lose their spot,” Stooley’s Café Owner Raj Chandra said in an interview with The Journal. Stooley’s started hosting trivia nights in June of this year as a “trial run” before students returned, Chandra explained. He estimates 100 per cent of trivia attendees on Monday nights are students.
Now hosting trivia every Thursday night, QP has “hit capacity for seats at every trivia event we’ve hosted so far,” Head Manager Greyson Martyn, Sci ’25 wrote in a statement to The Journal. “We knew this was an event we wanted to run and had high hopes for it from the beginning,” he wrote.
Interestingly, some students drink less on trivia nights. “We don’t sell too many drinks,” Chandra said. However, he thinks this has to do with students having class the next day as opposed to popular weekend nights. The same is true at Something in the Water, where “students do consume alcohol but always in moderation, as I assume most have early morning classes,” Docteur wrote.
“I drink less during trivia so I can stay sharp and answer the questions,” Kimberly Ramsay, ArtSci ’26, said in an interview with The Journal. She prefers trivia nights to clubbing because there’s less pressure to consume alcohol, and because of the activity’s social structure. This is consistent with generational trends among young people choosing to drink less and socialize in smaller groups.
“The social structure [trivia] provides might mitigate the awkwardness of being at a bar or club, and not knowing what to talk about,” Ramsay said. ‘There’s a social script.”
Whether weekly fanatics or casual participants, it’s clear that student preferences are trending toward trivia. As a nightlife option more suited to this generation’s tastes, trivia nights are likely here to stay.
Tags
bars, Culture, Student life, trivia
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