Wild West Trivia Marathon In St. Cloud Kicks Off This Friday

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- People from all over the world will test their knowledge and internet searching abilities this weekend, all thanks to an annual St. Cloud event. St. Cloud State University's radio station, KVSC, will host its 47th Annual Trivia Marathon starting at 5:00 pm on Friday.

Stefan's Dream has won the last 7 contests and 10 of the last 13.

The theme for this year's contest is Wild West Trivia, but it will feature questions on everything from pop culture to sports, books, and history.

Station Manager Dan Seeger says their questions are a level above bar trivia contests:

"We don't expect the teams are gonna know most questions off the top of their head. It is as much of a research test as it is a general knowledge test, and so that still lets us really dig in and be creative and play some different angles on it. We do try to vet the questions to make sure that they are not too easy with the help of the internet."

He says all the answers are solvable by teams with just a little bit of digging. About 50 teams take part each year, and team sizes are unlimited, so hundreds of people are actually playing.

Teams battle each year for the Minnesota Masters of Trivia traveling trophy.

Seeger says they try to keep things fresh and mix in a few surprises throughout the contest:

"How can we throw in something that is new, and different, and entertaining for our teams? They are, of course, as you said, very intently focused on the questions that we're reading over the airwaves, usually nine per hour, as you noted, but we wanna make sure that the rest of the radio programming is fun too, and we are always trying to find little different angles and try to do the unexpected."

Seeger says the contest is also a great educational experience for their entire student staff on how to put an event together, and they couldn't do the contest without all the volunteers and alumni who help make the contest go.

Teams have until 3:00 p.m. on Friday to register, and it costs $60 to play. The contest runs from 5:00 p.m. on Friday until 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, with an awards ceremony at Ritchie Auditorium at 8:00 p.m. and an after-party at the Red Carpet Nightclub.