Saturday July 20, 2019, IQ 2000’s annual trivia extravaganza IQ MANIA returned for a third time to the Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver! Read on for all the info on how it went down!
Sixteen teams competed at IQ MANIA 3. Notable in their absence was previous two-time winners I Have No Mouth and I Must Meme, meaning the field was cleared for a new champion to emerge: namely, By Sea, Land, and Quiz We Prosper!
As noted on a post made on our Facebook page, this year’s event was, unfortunately, visited by scandal. At the event itself, the team Suck It Racism was announced as the winners and awarded the cash prize and trophy. However, shortly afterwards, it was brought to IQ 2000’s attention, and confirmed via security camera footage, that that team had had eight active players and made several player substitutions, both of which are automatic disqualification offenses. Accordingly, they were disqualified and their win voided.
The third IQ MANIA called for a celebration, so we started out with a round on parties!
Round 1 tied for second-easiest round of the night, with an average score of 5.9 out of 8 possible points. Only one team, Born 2 Runner Up, managed a perfect score. The question that gave teams the most difficulty was naming the French painter of that impressionist masterpiece Luncheon of the Boating Party… which was Pierre-Auguste Renoir, for the record.
One of those rare times it’s not Monet OR Manet
One of our favourite new theme rounds of the last year was Vaguely Remembered Movies, so you know we had to bring it back huge for the big show! The teams crushed it on this round, making it the highest-scoring of the night! Seven teams decided to throw down their double here, including the four who aced it (Catticus Finch, Phineas Gages, Quiz Me Pelosi, and Velvet Booth Bitches). Interestingly, every single team correctly identified Dangerous Liaisons as that movie where John Malkovich seduces everyone in Ancien Régime France.
Truly the golden age of fancy wigs
Laydy Jams returned for a third year to rock our immortal music round! This year, the theme meant that every song contained a word of ten or more letters somewhere in the artist name or title.
This was by far the hardest round of the night, and possibly the hardest round in IQ MANIA history. The highest score was only 12 points, and, wisely, no teams opted for their doubles.
The hardest question in this round was also tied for the hardest question of the night: song 4 was Andy Gibb‘s disco hit “I Just Want to Be Your Everything,” which was identified by only one team: Cliff Clavin’s Buffalo Theory.
We called in some favours from some A-list friends to help present our video round! Featuring the talents of our celebrity friends:
• Holly Madison – Model and Playboy Bunny!
• Jenna Ushkowitz – Tina from Glee!
• Miltos Yerolemou – Syrio from Game of Thrones!
• Kennedy Stewart – Mayor of Vancouver!
• Akron Watson – Aaron Burr in Hamilton, An American Musical!
• Rob Liefeld – Comic book living legend!
• Greg Sestero – Mark from The Room!
• Montell Jordan – R&B god!
Turns out the celebs were bringing the heat as Round 4 was the second-hardest of the night, with an average score of 4.5 points, and no perfect scores. Three questions tied for hardest; the easiest was Miltos’s question about Kendo, which 15 of 16 teams got correct.
The most ambitious, audacious, and spectacular performance in IQ MANIA history, Tiffany Rivera and Adam Olgui brought the house down with this sizzling tribute to The Phantom of the Opera!
Average score for this tour of the world of opera (and opera-adjacent things) was 11.4, which enticed four teams to use their doubles. No perfect scores this time! The hardest question in this round was really, really hard: only one team (Trividealogues) knew that, in addition to something you say at an opera, a bravo can also mean an assassin or bandit. That tied it for hardest question of the night with Andy Gibb back in the music round.
Our on-location correspondent/trivia maven Jennie McCahill presented this video round from Las Vegas, Nevada with questions inspired by famous locations in Sin City.
Teams averaged 5.8 points per question in this round, and it was the lone question from the Grand Canyon that proved the most challenging – only 44 percent of teams knew that the Colorado River empties into the Gulf of California.
Southwest, here we come!
“She went off like a bolt of lightning
Mad as hell and the pace was frightening
Every stop on the trail was left for dead”
— “Speedrun,” The Trail to Oregon
The Phantom round went on a bit long, so we blitzed through our 16-question Speedrun round as fast as humanly possible! The speed didn’t seem to hurt our teams any, as this was tied for our second-highest scoring of the night with an average score of 11.9. House Hippos had the only perfect score, and four teams decided to double.
The hardest question was expanding the abbreviation GDQ, as in the speedrunning event – only four teams cracked this one: By Sea, Land, and Quiz We Prosper, House Hippos, Velvet Booth Bitches, and (unofficial team name of the night winners) We Just Took a DNA Test, Turns Out We’re 100% That Trivia Team.
Quick reflexes
Sixteen final points in Round 8 to bring it home! No theme, just random trivia. Average score came out to 10.8, and no perfect scores.
Two questions tied for hardest in this round: naming Hatshepsut as the OG HBIC of Ancient Egypt, and knowing that Argyle pattern is named after a region of Scotland.
Who run the world?
Our new reigning champions, with a final score of 103 was By Sea, Land, and Quiz We Prosper. Second place for the second consecutive year went to Catticus Finch with 100 points, and Velvet Booth Bitches rounding out the podium in third place with 98.
Next year: our trilogy becomes a quadrilogy with IQ MANIA 4 in 2020!
