MANCHESTER, NH — What’s the most common first name for a U.S. President?
If you know the answer to that without Googling, you might be a trivia buff. And if you’re a trivia buff, then you should buy your ticket for the First in the Nation Primary Trivia Night with Bill & Cody. The big event is set for Jan. 31 at The Rex, and you’ll need a few friends to round out your team.
Although it’s mostly all for fun, there will be prizes. And, if we’re being honest, the Holy Grail of trivia night is the bragging rights. Trivia is serious business for those who show up regularly to play, says Bill Seney. He’s been running trivia nights with his partner in random knowledge, Cody Booth, for a decade.
“Fun fact,” says Seney. “By our estimation we’ve hosted over 1,000 trivia nights. That’s a conservative estimation — two nights a week for 10 years and three nights a week for the last 18 months.”
That’s a lot of incidental information for two guys to cultivate — and even with the World Wide Web at their fingertips, it’s more than a fact-finding expedition. There’s a formula to assembling the perfect trivia night.
First and foremost, potential questions have to be the “crème de la crème ,” Seney says.
“We read a lot of questions. They have to be knowable, but not so easy that everybody knows the answer — and not so difficult that nobody knows it,” Seney says.
Case in point: “Do you know the official name of guitar pick?” asks Seney. “Plectrum. Yeah. Even people we asked who know music didn’t know that one, so it didn’t make the cut,” he says.
And vibe matters.
“It has to have a good flow,” Booth says. “It has to be fun.”
Friday’s event at the Rex will have all the usual ingredients, including flow and fun, plus some secret NH Primary sauce for a special round of questions focused on presidential trivia. For that, Seney and Booth got an assist from John Clayton, Executive Director of the Millyard Museum, known for dishing the NH trivia like nobody’s business. And after years of working as a columnist and reporter for the Union Leader, Clayton’s also a bit of a ringer when it comes to presidential factoids.
In fact, Seney credits Clayton for elevating this trivia night to a special NH Primary event. He had already booked a trivia night for Jan. 31 at the Rex to feature wife Alli Beaudry contributing musical clues. Then Clayton called and floated the idea of adding some political trivia to the mix, and Seney and Booth were immediately on board.
The theater will be decked out in red-white-and-blue decor and there will be a super-sized American flag as a backdrop.
“It’s not just a night of trivia,” Seney says. “It’s music, it’s city pride, it’s a communal event, and we’re going to make it fun. This is not the last stop on our trivia train.”
Seney says the hope is that the night is a huge success and the Rex will add Trivia Nights with Bill & Cody into the regular rotation. That’s because there’s something about random fun that brings people together.
“For all the people who feel they remember a lot of useless information, this puts all that useless information to good use,” Seney says.
If you were the kid who remembered the theme song for Big Red Gum but couldn’t remember the answers to the test you studied for, this night’s for you. And if you know that there have been more presidents named James than any other first name (six of them) then there’s a seat at the trivia table for you.
Tickets are available online or at the Palace Theatre box office. Cost is $25 per person.
