We had the opportunity to sit down with the brilliant brains behind the Colorado Trivia League. Here's what we learned.

If you've ever done the bar scene here in Colorado, you're bound to have participated in at least one trivia night held at a bar. The bar scene isn't really my thing anymore, and trivia has never been a thing for me. Or, so I thought ...

When I sat down with Derek and Dan of the Colorado Trivia League, I was initially skeptical. Trivia, in general, has always given me anxiety. All the memorization and fact-recalling were just too stressful; my mind would get clouded with an endless stream of potential answers, none of them right. Then, you factor in the competition, and my nerves instantly triple. So, anytime I was asked to join a trivia night, I'd decline, simply out of fear of getting an answer wrong and embarrassing myself.

But all of those nerves and anxious thoughts began to melt away the more and more I learned about what Derek and Dan have created in the Colorado Trivia League.

In 2015, Derek was preparing for a Jeopardy audition—a long and lengthy process—but through that preparation, his love for trivia "took on a life of its own." As a self-proclaimed "trivia master," Derek decided to create the Colorado Trivia League, to bring that same love and joy to crowds of people, like me.

"I love trivia ... my inspiration is that [Colorado Trivia League] could be better than the existing options out there," Derek said.

But, due to the pandemic in 2020, this idea was temporarily delayed. That is until bars started opening back up again. And by April 2021, it was game on!

At first, Derek went from bar to bar around Denver, searching for locations to host his trivia events. Dan joined soon after, and the two have been building the company ever since. Dan came from a sales background, with trivia being more of a hobby than a career. But when Derek asked Dan to host the trivia events, he couldn't say no.

"Especially with the pandemic, during and prior, people are becoming siloed," Dan said. "Trivia is to start bringing people back together, to start talking. Socializing and being face-to-face is becoming rarer; it's part of the human condition, the human story."

"So, when you start to get a good generation of noise, and you've got lots and lots of people together in one room, and you start to get teams bantering and huddling together, there's a 'fizz' between people," he added. "You get to see it quite often, which is really nice."

The Colorado Trivia League currently hosts events at more than 25 bars throughout Colorado.

So, you're probably wondering, "What makes the Colorado Trivia League different, let's say, Geeks Who Drink?" Great question!

Through years of practice and gaining knowledge of Jeopardy, Derek developed a unique trivia experience—one that will make any trivia skeptic (aka me) excited and ready to play! With more than 200,000 flashcards spread across 5 different sets, you and your team will go through 5 full rounds of head-scratching questions.

The first round is the easiest round, to get you primed and settled for the game, says Derek. And then each round gets progressively harder. From visual and audio cues to identifying the common thread between 9 different questions, you and your trivia buddies will test your knowledge and put your skills to the test the entire time, all while having a blast at outwitting your opponents!

Seriously, though. When my team invited Derek and Dan out for us to try their complete trivia experience, everyone was a bit nervous and rather quiet at first. But as each round went on, everyone got louder (and more rambunctious)—myself included! Teams would smack-talk and gloat at their wins. (All in good fun, of course!) Seeing co-workers who had never really talked or worked together before becoming a singular unit, a team, was really cool.

And that's exactly why the Colorado Trivia League exists.

So, thank you, Derek and Dan, for hosting such a fun team-building event! We look forward to the next one.

If you're interested in hiring the Colorado Trivia League for your next company event, bachelor/bachelorette party, or game night, you can contact them via email at [email protected].