Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Cahnmann.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jeremy. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
10 years ago there were only a handful of trivia nights in the city of Chicago and one of them was at Joe’s on Weed Street. The guy who was hosting was getting married and needed to step down. The woman in charge of finding a replacement didn’t know where to look as there weren’t nearly as many trivia companies in 2008 as there is today.
The woman in charge I believe her name was Caitlyn had also worked for the Chicago Sport & Social Club where I also worked. She was talking to another CSSC employee and wondering where she could find somebody to host a trivia night. My name was suggested as I’ve got kind of a boisterous personality and I know a lot of random things.
In actuality, I’ve loved trivia and games my whole life and when I was a kid my dream job was to be a game show host so when I was asked I thought hey this is perfect. I immediately accepted without even inquiring about payment. At the start, there were some difficulties in writing a good trivia question but overall I loved it. Slowly but surely I developed a format and one bar a week became two became three and so on. Eventually, I started doing private events, school fundraisers, church/synagogue groups/ corporate events and before you know it trivia was a full-time job.
I was doing something I genuinely enjoyed and I was making enough to pay the bills so it was a win-win.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No road is ever perfectly smooth. There are always pratfalls along the way. When I first started it was tough to know what made for a good trivia question and what was just a bad question. Basically, it is the difference between trivia and trivial.
Here’s an example I started hosting trivia in February of 2008. Presidents Day was right around the corner when I hosted my first trivia night so I asked some presidential trivia questions.
One of the first questions I asked was Presidents Day is in February, how many presidents were actually born in February? That’s an awful question because unless you know the birthday of every single president it’s near impossible to get it right. What should I’ve asked if there were 4 presidents born on February for 1 point each name them? That way everybody should get 1-2 points (Lincoln/Washington) and some folks will know Reagan but nobody is going to know WH Harrison but maybe you could guess it. Either way, I had to learn the difference between asking a trivia question that makes you really think and one that is just obscure information that most people don’t care about. I still struggle with that today.
Then there is the fact that while I would like every bar that hires me to do trivia to thrive the reality is that trivia doesn’t work for everybody. It’s always tough to lose an account because I feel I didn’t do my job but at the same time, my philosophy is I would rather lose an account then have a bar resent the job that I do. I always tell my clients if something isn’t working let me know and we will either find a way to fix it or take things in another direction. I know what I do can work but if it doesn’t and we need to part ways I want it to be on the best of terms.
The last struggle, especially with growth, is that once I got to a point where I was too big to handle every account myself I needed to find reliable and talented people to host nights for me. Finding somebody who is reliable is super important but if they have no personality that’s no good and at the same time finding somebody with personality is great but if they aren’t reliable it does you no good. So finding somebody who is the perfect mix of both can be tricky and is always a struggle.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We provide pub trivia quizzes to bars and restaurants and run trivia events for schools, churches, corporate events, private parties etc. We’ve done baby showers, birthday parties, wedding receptions, church and school fundraisers, Hannukah parties, team building events, kids night trivia events, etc., etc. etc. you name it we can do it if it involves trivia.
One thing I was the first person to do was to start putting the questions on TV screens so you get to visually see the question as well as hearing it. Some people are just visual learners so it is better for them to see a question. Also when I can display a question I can also put a picture with the question and I decided that my pictures would sometimes be clues to the answer.
For example if I ask you Who was the first person to win 3 Super Bowl MVP awards and you know nothing about football you might be turned off and think you can’t contribute but if I put a picture of Miley Cyrus on the slide with the question you might know she played Hannah Montana and somebody on your team might connect Hannah Montana to Joe Montana which is the correct answer.
To me adding the pictures was a way to help people get from the question I am asking to the answer without just giving it away. Some picture clues are really obvious and others are a bit of a stretch but they can always be fun and sometimes they make for good stories. I remember one of my long-time players being very proud when he got a Saved by the Bell question correct because I put a picture of a Train Air Conditioning Unit on the slide and he realized that the clue was AC for AC Slater.
I specialize in doing theme nights and personalizing trivia nights. So I am known for doing trivia nights about TV shows like Friends, The Office, Gilmore Girls, etc. or Harry Potter or Star Wars or whatever is requested. In addition, when I do private events I will often customize the questions so they take on a more personal nature.
I remember doing a corporate event once and they asked me to randomly assign people teams so since I had everybody’s name and employer I went and looked at all of their social media profiles (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) I found out information about the people playing, where they went to college, what their hobbies were, where they had traveled, former employers, etc and I asked questions about each of them. It was a ton of fun.
What sets me apart from other companies is the personal touch I put on private events and the fact that I host 95%+ of all the private events I do and since I also write all the material I am very familiar with everything and can answer any questions people have. I will also sometimes create trivia on the spot. I like to call it Improv Trivia or U-Call-It Trivia. I take suggestions from the crowd and just make up a round of trivia on the spot. I’ve never been one to stick to the script and I like to adlib so it suits my personality well and I think it makes each event quite unique.
What were you like growing up?
I was always very inquisitive and outgoing. I loved going places and meeting people. I loved learning things but I definitely didn’t like to do things by the book. I always like having the outline of a plan but I like to let the situation guide my next move and don’t like to get hung up on things going a set way each time. In high school, I had a teacher who made us memorize a Henry David Thoreau quote it went
If a man does not keep step with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer. Let him march to music which he hears however measured or far away. I love that quote and I think I live my life in that fashion. I definitely don’t march to the beat of the same drummer as most folks.
My other philosophy in life is Take Nothing but Memories and Leave Nothing but Footprints. My major interests besides trivia are Travel, Baseball, Politics, Meeting New People, Seeing New Things, Scrabble, and Having Fun.
Pricing:
- Private events run around $500 (Location and Size of event may increase price)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.brainbashtrivia.com
- Phone: 312-208-6690
- Email: jeremy@brainbashtrivia.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/brainbashtrivia
- Twitter: @brainbashtrivia
Image Credit:
Matthew T Kuehl Photographer
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
