ENTERTAINMENT
Believe it or Not, Residents Love a Good Quiz Night! Established in 1998 in Auckland, Believe it or Not Quiz Nights pioneered the quiz industry in New Zealand and is the largest provider of quiz nights, and trivia-based products in the country.
hen Brendan Lochead, founder of Believe it Not, noticed that the quiz night offered at his parents’ retirement village wasn’t really up to scratch, he realised there was an opportunity to provide a true event for retirement and aged care residents based on his years of experience. “The quizzes were not great, no real thought had been given to the types of questions that this age group would enjoy,” explained Lochead. “A lot of the residents would have been to one of our pub quiz nights over the last 20-odd years, and that’s the experience they were looking for. We turned a simple quiz night into a proper event because this time in the residents’ lives should be all about living!” Believe it or Not’s aged care/ retirement product is designed to be interactive, using a village’s communal area’s entertainment system to run the entire night through big screen projectors or televisions (although there is also a version that can be used without TVs). “Our product has been completely tailored to the over-65s.”
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There is a skill to setting quiz questions, noted Lochead, something that many people overlook. Lochead’s team of seven fulltime staff create tailored, boutique events and while they use many of the elements from their pub quizzes, some things have been altered. “Figuring out the categories has been interesting. If we ask questions that are too hard or irrelevant to the audience, they’re not going to want to come back. By in large the residents love history, geography, science, and the arts, and we keep our entertainment rounds focused primarily on pre-1980s.”
Something for Everyone The special aspects of Believe it Not pub quizzes remain in the aged care offering and it’s these that set a Believe it or Not quiz night apart from the rest. These elements, including the Ponderous Puzzle, Last Man Standing, and The List go into making a Believe it or Not multimedia quiz night a special event, one villages can use to not only
