Quiz Nights are starting to become more and more common in Madeiran nightlife.
What are the colours adorning the flag of Belize? Is it possible for water to be liquid, gaseous and solid at the same time? For how many years did Larry king host the Larry King Live show?
Did you come up with the answers in a blink? Fab! Then you are ready to venture the world of quiz bars in Madeira.
Traditionally, quiz bars work like this: participants are divided in small groups and given a sheet of paper. The host then asks several questions that have to be answered in the least time possible.
Questions topics range from entertainment to sports and trivia and can even include the challenge of identifying someone in a picture. The winners of these marathons can leave the bar and not pay a penny. You see, the prize usually covers what they have consumed that night!
That is how it has been over the last few years at the Moynihan’s Bar. Every Thursday at 9:30 p.m., the Irish pub located on Rua Imperatriz D. Amélia challenges its clients with a series of questions to assess their general knowledge. Always in English.
Up until some time ago, this was one of the very few places where one could have fun in a quiz night.
Pedro Gonçalves was on holiday in the north of Portugal when he entered a bar and found ‘a form of entertainment completely different from anything he had ever encountered’. At the centre of the table was a wireless remote and customers were ‘staring at the various screens’. Each time a question came up, customers would exchange their hunches and try to answer as quickly as possible.
The game was Dr. Why. It originated in Italy in 1999 and challenges its participants to answer a variety of questions on their, sometimes not so, general knowledge.
Pedro immediately understood this ‘was the dynamic missing in the bars, hotels and restaurants of our island’. Since June, the Los Primos and Mexicano bars have hosted Dr. Why on Wednesdays and Fridays, respectively. Bilha Café, in Camacha, have it on Saturdays. The host for these evenings is Pedro Gonçalves.
The idea is to spend a pleasant evening hanging out with friends while answering some questions and, who knows, winning some kind of prize! Be they vouchers, wine bottles or just pens, there is always a prize for the winning team.
The program is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, the language used, at the moment, in the bars of the region though the goal is to divulge and ‘expand the initiative’ to other places and types of events such as weddings and baptisms, and to explore other languages.
