The Data Behind America's Trivia Night Boom

We expected trivia to skew toward weeknights. What we didn't expect was how dramatic the drop-off would be. Tuesday and Wednesday each have roughly 2,600 scheduled trivia events per week. Saturday has 73. That's not a gradual curve — it's a cliff.

Thursday is solid at 1,629 events, and even Monday — traditionally the slowest bar night of the week — has 1,108. Then comes Friday at just 143, and Sunday at 268. The implication is clear: trivia isn't competing with weekend nightlife. It is the weeknight nightlife. For thousands of bars, it's the thing that fills seats on the nights they'd otherwise be empty.

If you'd asked us before looking at the data, we might have guessed Thursday was the biggest trivia night — it has that "almost the weekend" energy. Instead, Tuesday and Wednesday are virtually tied at the top. The bar industry, it turns out, has collectively figured out that the best night to bring people in is the one they have no other reason to leave the house.

When we ranked cities by number of active trivia venues, the list was full of surprises.

The number one city for bar trivia in the United States is San Diego, with 140 venues. Not New York (which comes in at #6 despite being the country's largest city). Not Los Angeles. San Diego — followed closely by Chicago at 136, then Denver and Portland.

Look at the rest of the top 10 and a pattern emerges. Nashville, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore — these are mid-size cities with strong local bar cultures and a particular kind of community energy. The coasts don't dominate. If anything, trivia seems to thrive most in places where going out on a Tuesday still means going to a neighborhood spot, not a destination.

We also looked at the data by state, and the map tells a story that the city rankings only hint at.

California leads with 765 venues, which isn't surprising given its size. But after that, the list gets interesting. New York (497) and Texas (493) are nearly tied. Florida has 455. Colorado — a state with roughly one-sixth the population of California — has 312, which gives it one of the highest per-capita trivia densities in the country.

What struck us most was the Midwest. Ohio has 220 venues. Wisconsin has 214. Michigan has 202. Indiana has 161. These aren't states that typically show up in national nightlife conversations, but they have thriving trivia scenes. The same goes for Tennessee (296), which punches well above its population weight — probably not a coincidence given Nashville's position in the city rankings above.

Here's something most trivia players probably don't think about: somebody has to write those questions, hire the host, and coordinate the schedule at dozens or even hundreds of bars. Behind nearly every trivia night is a hosting company — and there are more than 500 of them in our database. We were curious what the competitive landscape looked like.

One company towers over the rest: Geeks Who Drink, with over 500 venues across 187 cities. No one else is close in geographic reach. After that, the market fragments quickly — Challenge Entertainment covers 90 cities, DJ Trivia spans 61, and then there's a long tail of regional players. Most trivia companies operate in a single metro area or state.

But the more interesting detail is in the ratio of venues to cities. Sunset Trivia runs 109 venues across just 17 cities — averaging over 6 per city, a deeply local operation. Pub Trivia USA has 96 venues across 78 cities — nearly one per city, a completely different model. Same industry, radically different strategies for how to grow.

Step back from the individual charts and a bigger picture comes into focus. Bar trivia has become something like the bowling league of the 2020s — a structured, low-stakes reason to leave the house on a weeknight and be around other people.

We'll keep tracking the data as the database grows. If the current trend holds, the biggest question isn't whether trivia will keep expanding — it's whether Tuesday nights have any room left.

Data as of March 2026. TriviaNearMe tracks live, in-person bar trivia events across the United States. Venue counts reflect active listings in the TriviaNearMe database and may not capture every trivia night in a given area.