New Scaratings

Hello folks,

I am opening a new restaurant in a few months, and am considering having BT available. From looking at the usage records from various locations it seems that a few people at each location use it often, and a bunch of people use it 1-2 visits a month. But I like that its an option, and the tablets also have games for the kids.

But what I really am curious about, is using the Live Trivia and Opinionation options. No one BT location near me uses the Live option.
How is it? What is it like? Do they have 'visual' questions? Do they have 'music' or audio questions? Are they timed responses so only 1 team gets it right, or does each team answer all questions and get scored separately?

Any help or insight would be appreciated. I need to know if I can use BT for the live, or if I am better off getting an outside person to run a Live Trivia night.

Hi Coredump, welcome to the boards. Buzztime is good choice for drawing in new customers.

I"ll start out by saying the standard buzztime trivia is what most players are looking for. As you pointed out there are different levels of use depending on the level of your marketing. At a minimum you have to leave a TV always on trivia and a couple tablets out on the bar for potential players to try. Too many locations think that with the tablets there is no need for the games to show on a TV screen. That is so wrong, there must be a TV on the channel if you expect any new players, plus the advertising of your specials for all non players to see.

As for the Live trivia/Opinionation, it can be hit or miss. All players get points per question if they get it right I think it's a 1000 or nothing, there are no audio or visual questions. It's pretty much the same as a standard countdown games with a host of your choosing. Maybe a server with a good voice? They don't have to do much, the scoring is handled by the buzztime system.

I'd say try the Live trivia option to see how it goes before spending money on a 2nd trivia company. However, the standard trivia will be the main draw, but you have to have your staff promote it and know how it works. Keep it on TVs and offer small prizes (drinks) around happy hour for game winners or for your bar making the top 10 or 20.

What city are you in?

Good luck.

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Caps and Os!!!!

Thanks for the feedback.

I have checked out some arbitrary locations to see usage patterns, and it seems pretty consistent.
Looking at one of your home sites, BWW Gaithersburg, there are 15 players that play with any frequency. Beyond that are people that are in single digits for a 6 month period.

Granted, some of you guys must live there (4-600 games in 6 months.... )

It doesn't seem to do a lot to bring in new customers. Not saying it isn't worth it, those 15 people are buying food and drinks while playing. But there seems to be a very small hard core group, and everyone else may play a game or two every few months.

Does that sound about right, or am I missing something?

I will have 1 or 2 TVs devoted to the game, maybe more if we have a Trivia night.

With the tablets and TV combo, it seems like a real missed opportunity to not have visual or audio questions, at least for Live Trivia. It is feeling like a step below what the In-Person trivia companies are offering.

We are more a restaurant than pub/bar, so I also like the 'games' aspect, and the parents might like it also. I would feel much better about this if I felt BT could handle the Live Trivia for me also.

Has anyone played the Opinionation game?

edit: I am in Richmond VA. Not 'too' far from you....

I have played for a long time and dearly love the game,but I don't think it pays for itself anymore. Sleepy was 1 0f 1346 playing Six on 1/3/18 out of what?, 2800 locations meaning after considering multi-boxers and locations with multiple players probably 3/4s of the locations had zip. It's not where I would put my money.

I guess it depends on the site and the activity. Our site pulls in at least 20 people every Tuesday for the evening games, in addition to the regulars who come in every day for a few hours to play.

As for me, if I am traveling I always check to see which places have Buzztime, and choose to go to those places over those that don't. I don't know how representative I am, though.

_________________
Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."

The BWW I go to used to do the BT Live every Wednesday night and my wife and I would go. The key was having a good host run the Live. They gave a bottle of sauce to the winning team but it really wasn't about the prize. They have(had) 3 options...pop culture, sports, and random categories but I'm not sure how often the questions change. Why I say a good host is important is people won't know what it's all about. When we first started going, the guy would switch a large chunk of TVs to Live, go around with tablets and ask people if they wanted to play, be on the mic about 15 minutes prior, etc...used to get 15 - 20 teams/individuals. Whenever someone else did it and after he moved on to another position, the number dropped to 2-3 teams at most because no one knew what was going on and eventually they have now switched to a company coming in and doing it and getting a lot more activity now for the Live action.

But I do think you are right, there is a core group that will play fairly frequently and then you'll get others here and there. The key is trying to get people to get hooked. And if you can figure that out, please share your secret!

I am like ANON, if I travel, I tend to look for places that have Buzztime (even if that means BWW) over just going somewhere randomly.

You have it about right except that there are "visiting players' that are registered at other bars. Or not registered at all. You can play as a guest and those people never show on the stat pages.

We have players that play at BWW Gaithersburg that aren't registered here. We have regulars from Rockville, Urbana, Silver Spring locations etc. Then there are the out of town visitors mentioned by others that will only seek out buzztime bars. So there is more to it than just the number registered at a bar.

I think that if you have a group of regulars that are there all the time the BT system is very much worth it. A good group as we have in Gaithersburg spends a shit load of $ each week on food and drink.

As for the live game, as Brutus said, a good host will make or break that deal. A outgoing server or manager can easily handle 1 night a week.

Good luck.

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Caps and Os!!!!

As a player and a manager at a restaurant with BT, please allow me to echo and add to the comments already posted.

The player in me wants to shout, "Of course you should have BT at your new restaurant!" as I selfishly want to have more places to play. And like others have noted, when I travel, I look for BT sites. (I have played, for example, with BUD above. Great guy!)

The restaurant manager in me is quite a bit more measured. As recently as the late 90's/early 00's, it didn't take much more to have BT pay for itself than keeping your devices charged and BT on a couple TV's. There was an active player community that BT fostered with a discussion board and a forum for site reviews. People all over the continent knew each other and corresponded regularly. For reasons that may have made sense at the time, BT got rid of both of those fora, hampering the ability of the players to foster the community. New Scaratings is great and I am fond of my fellow posters here, but it is a pale echo of the BT forum.)

Around the same time, BT made a few horrific changes to the game it offered, including dumbing down the content, adding games geared toward 20-year olds, purposely scheduling repeat games and splitting the network in two. All of these decisions have since been reversed, but the damage was significant. The regular player base was eroded bigly.

BT has also seems to spend a lot of time and money on everything but maintaining and improving the one successful product they have: real-time, continent-wide trivia with nearly instant results. A most egregious example of this is the hiring of a bar consultant, ostensibly to provide resources BT customers could use to enhance their businesses. In reality, he provided information that was blatant common sense and/or was available from any number of other sources for free. BT tries to keep up with new technology, social media and entertainment trends, but they always seem to be a touch behind the curve and anemic. Ironically, this drives their end-users, the players, to the very media that is BT's competition. I.e., BT moving the majority of their social interaction to Facebook encourages people to be on FB, which they do on their phones, at the bar, instead of playing BT. Their "live trivia" just isn't as good as actual live trivia (even with its warts), pushing players to seek out the real thing. I recognize the need to keep up with the times, but these moves have driven more players away from BT.

All that having been said, it's still possible to use BT successfully, but it really does take more commitment now than it used to. You, or a manager, or a few charismatic employees, have to promote BT actively by playing with your patrons, understanding how the network and the games work, knowing how to help patrons log in, etc. At Stewart's, we still have regular players throughout the day, but not nearly as many as we used to. We still have a top-ten Wednesday night Six team, but that's likely because I play and encourage others. Most notably, we have "Game Days" on Sundays after football is over until it's too nice outside. We give away prizes to people playing the regular BT trivia through a number of games (i.e., not just to the first place player). We are so successful with this that we order extra Playmakers for three months and often see better numbers on those Sundays than we did during football season. I know other bars give out drinks for national #1 individual or site scores. (Watch the national rankings any weekday afternoon for the New Smyrna, Florida bars to see the results of that.)

While BT has sporadic episodes of helpfulness in fostering friendly competition among sites, a lot of what we do seems to be successful regardless of their actions or even despite them. Much depends on your individual BT rep. We've had several, some better than others. On a bright note, the folks who man the BT customer service lines are among the best and most responsive I've ever encountered. Many have been there for years and understand the actual product much better than the revolving-door executives that run the company.

I think its also important to point out the passive users of BT trivia. These are your patrons who have never and will never pick up a Playmaker, but who nonetheless pay attention to the BT TV. While it's more difficult to measure their precise numbers, we believe they are a significant demographic for us. That said, there are other things that may offer a distraction for them more cheaply, but it's still important.

I hope I don't sound too negative. We have had success with BT for more than 20 years. We still get travelers from all over the country who seek us out because they've seen us on BT. It just takes a little effort.

I hope some of this is helpful to you in some way. If you have any questions or want specifics on things we do at Stewart's, feel free to PM me.

-AKBAR/Shawn S.

Is Buzztime Live a stand-alone option? I don't know.

What would kill, from a proprietor's perspective, would be a Jeopardy! caliber live quiz, with team play, which might draw in 40 as opposed to 4 drinkers.

The deal with live trivia is that most of the purveyors are of widely variable competence. I've never attended a live session where the moderator didn't commit a howler. It's tedious to walk up to the guy who just fucked up and tell him as much.

My inexpert advice, Coredump, would be to pursue live trivia appropriate to the demographics of whichever corner of the trivia desert you wish to occupy.

Factual knowledge is hard to come by, so Opinionation looks good - especially at a distance.

To offer something constructive to the conversation, one local place partnered with a local micro-brewery as sponsor of the live trivia. They featured a special on the brewery's beers the night of the game and the brewery offered a personal tour and tasting to the nights winning team.

On the flip side when Hooters had Buzztime they ran a weekly event at each area store culminating in a championship tournament of the top three teams from each store. One team blew all the others out of the water and won, but Buzztime Live hosts know the answers in advance and one of the hosts gave the answers in advance to the winning team which was her family. When people found out they stopped playing Buzztime at Hooters.

Thanks for some really great information.

I was planning on having a Live Trivia night, and thought if BT could fill that niche, the rest would be gravy and make it an easy decision.. It appears BT is only going to be so-so for Live Trivia, but the rest of the benefits are still there....so I will probably still try it. If the Live doesn't work out well enough, then I can re-evaluate.

Turns out BT offers several options for Live trivia each week, 30 Ques general, 60 ques general, a categories version, a couple of sports options and some others.

It seems absurd that they don't have any 'picture' based questions, especially now with the tablets. ("Who is this actor?" or "Which team has this mascot?") They don't do song/audio ones either....

And while it isn't a big draw for hardcore Trivia fans, nor most bars/pubs.... having the tablets on hand with games for the kids is a pretty good selling point for family business.

Turns out, my restaurant will be ~50' from a BWW, so that may be interesting. Not sure if that will help or hurt my BT usage.

And yes, I will definitely be contacting some of you folks for ideas when the time comes.