Global Pub Trivia Night 2025 in Chicago. (Photo courtesy UChicago Alumni)
And other questions for the young alumni behind Global Pub Trivia Night.
Amara Balan, Al Shah, and Bailey Street, all AB’20, write the spectacularly befuddling trivia questions for UChicago Alumni’s Global Pub Trivia Night. They also host a regular trivia event for the alumni community in New York City.
The Core had some questions of its own. Here are Balan’s and Street’s answers. This interview has been edited and condensed.
How did you start hosting trivia nights?
Amara Balan: Trivia night at the Pub is an institution—a fundamental UChicago experience. During the shutdown in 2020, we hosted monthly trivia on Zoom, just for our friends.
Al [Shah] and I joined the New York alumni board in the summer of 2022, when there was a push toward more in-person programming, specifically activating the young alumni network. Trivia felt like a natural event for us to pitch.
Bailey Street: The first trivia night, we had no idea if people were going to show up. We had 50 people squished into way too small a room.
What is your question-writing process? Do you write together?
Street: Definitely together. We have Google Sheets and stuff.
Balan: A shared Notes app. It’s pretty organic.
Street: We come up with questions as we think of them, just going around life. Last year I went to Argentina. The president’s office is called La Casa Rosada (the Pink House). I thought, “That’s a trivia question.”
Are there categories that don’t work?
Street: I’m a big sports fan. I would like to include a lot of sports. A UChicago audience does not enjoy that.
Balan: We always have to throw in one or two sports questions, but those tend to be groaners. We did a sports round once, and that was by far one of the worst performing and worst received.
Do you use any special formats?
Balan: In New York we do two signature rounds. One has a math format. We’ll take books and movies that have numbers in their titles and have some sort of math component.
The other, People Mash-up, was inspired by a College application question that debuted for the 2020 applicant pool. An example would be “Etiquette expert recommends beer bongs and Bentleys for your next function”: Emily Post Malone.
It’s polarizing. People either are like, “This is the most creative, entertaining thing ever,” or “I hate this round.”
What makes a good or bad trivia question?
Balan: A good trivia question is concise, and it’s very clear what you’re asking. You want to minimize anybody’s ability to argue with the phrasing.
We’re not dealing with a regular trivia audience. We’re dealing with people who are used to being the smartest person in the room. They’re very willing to argue.
Street: I want to write questions that maybe half the groups get right. If everyone gets it wrong, they get bummed out. It’s boring. But it’s also boring when everyone gets everything right. You want to feel a certain sense of accomplishment.
Have you ever stumped everyone?
Street: Definitely. I was surprised.
Balan: We’ve hosted almost 20 New York events, so around 1,000 questions. Maybe a dozen or so nobody got right.
Have you ever had answers that were wrong?
Balan: Never 100 percent incorrect. We’ve had people say, “This should also be an acceptable answer.” We are pretty generous. But there have been people who have argued and argued and argued, and we’re like, “No, sorry. You’re wrong.”
Do people argue at other trivia events? Or is it a UChicago thing?
Balan: There might be a slightly higher threshold.
Street: When the two of us play trivia, we’ve occasionally questioned the answer. Not often.
Is trivia trivial?
Street: In some ways it is. If you’re not busy on a Tuesday night, it’s a thing to do with your friends. Something to enjoy.
But one thing that makes it not trivial is that everyone on a team has some sort of unique value. Everyone has a different base of knowledge, and that could be the difference between a team winning or losing. Even if you’re not the biggest contributor, you can bring something.
Balan: Here is a UChicago answer for a UChicago question. I looked up the etymology for trivia. It comes from a Latin expression for a place where multiple roads meet. Then it evolved to mean “a public place,” and from there, “commonplace or unimportant.”
But it’s a place where people can come together, and that’s not a trivial thing at all.
Favorite Four
Can you answer these all-time favorite questions from the Global Pub Trivia trio? Answers at the bottom of the page.
- What sport did astronomer Edwin Hubble, SB 1910, PhD 1917, play while at the University of Chicago, leading the Maroons to their first Big Ten Conference title in 1907?
- What is the sum of all seven Roman numerals, expressed in standard Arabic numerals?
- What Pine Barrens-dwelling cryptid has the head of a goat, the wings of a dragon, and cloven hooves?
- The “Blue Ribbon” in the name of the beer Pabst Blue Ribbon allegedly comes from winning an award at what historical event?
Global Pub Trivia Night 2025 was held in six cities as well as virtually. The winning teams were Team Stony Island (Boston), Team Oluwamayomikun’s Angels (Chicago), Team DJ M&M (London), Team DaFratbros (New York City), Team Modulo (San Francisco), Team The College (Singapore), and Team Slam Dunc (fourth-years at the Pub). The overall winner was Ije Igboeli, MBA’11, who attended virtually.