Here are the numbers: 300 questions, 50 hours.
The 55th annual Great Midwest Trivia Contest will soon be underway, beginning at 37 seconds past 10 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 24, and closing at midnight on Sunday, Jan. 26.
So, what exactly are you getting into when you register for the contest? The simple answer is, a whole lot of fun. And a little chaos.
The Great Midwest Trivia Contest probably isn’t trivia as you know it. All weekend, a team of Trivia Masters dishes out 300 questions that require teamwork and extensive searching to answer; all part of the fun. Nearly 100 teams from on and off campus call in with their responses.
Since the first game appeared on the WLFM airwaves in 1966, the contest has become a Lawrence tradition of legendary proportions. It continues to air each year on the digital broadcast of WLFM, the student station that can be found here.
The questions come almost non-stop for 50 hours. Highlights include hourly action questions. Imagine, for example, measuring the distance from Colman Hall to Trever Hall using copies of Plato’s Republic, the beloved work that’s part of Freshman Studies. On the final day of the contest come the Garudas — very difficult questions — topped off by the Super Garuda, the impossible finale question that returns as the first question of the following year’s contest.
This year’s theme is Apocalypse, as you may have guessed from the Trivia Masters’ photos that can be seen around campus.
One aspect of last year’s theme, Fast, will carry over into this year’s contest. Questions will be given at rapid-fire speed to ensure that all players are kept busy. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a single dull moment in the Great Midwest Trivia Contest, perhaps this year more than previous years.
Take it from this year’s Trivia Headmaster Allegra Taylor ’20, a senior from Chico, California. She’s been playing trivia since she was a first-year student.
“Trivia was one of the reasons I came to Lawrence,” she says. “I got some friends together and started a team as soon as I got here.”
But she didn’t always have her sights set on being a Trivia Master, let alone the Headmaster.
“The thought of doing it was so scary because it was so much responsibility. I didn’t know if I wanted to take that on.”
The Trivia Headmaster oversees the planning of the contest, which has been in the works since May of last year. Taylor and her team of 13 Trivia Masters have been tirelessly coming up with questions. Taylor admits the duty of Headmaster feels all the more crucial at the 55-year landmark.
“That’s a 55-year tradition, so if you mess that up …,” she says as her voice drifts off. “But it’s been great. I have a great team of Trivia Masters so I’m really excited.”
Don’t let the fanfare scare you off. Taylor wants people to know that the contest is all about having fun.
“A lot of people think it’s a huge, overwhelming thing to play, but a lot of people have fun playing whenever they can,” Taylor says. “Just get some friends together and play for a couple hours on Saturday night. You don’t have to be competitive. It’s really fun no matter how much or how little you play.”
Mark your calendars: Registration for the Great Midwest Trivia Contest takes places at 8 p.m. on the first night of the contest. You can also set your alarms that morning to catch Taylor talking more about the contest on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Morning Show from 6 to 7 a.m.
Head here for all the trivia tidbits.
Ed Berthiaume
Ed Berthiaume is director of public information at Lawrence University.