Last Saturday evening, Calvin students, either individually or as part of a team, showcased their knowledge of pop culture and their dance moves while vying for the honor of winning the top prize of $500 in cash.
The game show, called ThinkFast, was sponsored by Nite Life, who partnered with TJohnE Productions.
Lauren DeGroot, a Weekend Programming intern, gave her thoughts on the success of the show.
“I think success can be determined in multiple ways for this event,” DeGroot said. “It definitely wasn’t determined by numbers. For this event, this is the lowest amount of people we’ve had [compared to other Nite-Life events]. Typically, we average 200-400 people. For Carnival and the Great Gatsby Formal, we averaged higher numbers. We did expect lower numbers at this event, but at least the energy was really strong in the audience and that is what we really cared about. You could tell people were really engaged and having a good time.”
DeGroot also reserved special praise for the game show hosts, TJohnE Productions.
“We’ll definitely use TJohnE Productions again, because they are always very punctual, very prepared and they clearly specialize in putting on these programs especially on college campuses. In terms of their experience, we’ll definitely hire them again, maybe not for a game show again, but we’d probably choose to implement another event where we think we could get higher participation. Overall they’re a great company and we’ll definitely partner with them next year for something.”
The winners of the top prize were four members of the Project Neighborhood house on Travis Street: Ian Kennedy, Libby Huizenga, Andrea Bootsma and the house mentor, John ‘Moose’ Williamson.
Ian Kennedy was delighted to be part of the winning team and explained his team’s strategy.
“We hardly did any preparation,” Kennedy said. “We got together half an hour before and looked at the company’s website so that we wouldn’t be blindsided with the format of the game. We developed a very meager strategy of going with our first instinct as soon as possible.”
He explained the type of questions the team encountered on their way to success.
“The questions were oddly popular,” Kennedy said. “It was hard to know what angle they were going to come from before we got started. There was a lot of stuff about songs and movies that are in celebrity culture. There were a few random education-based questions, but not a lot like you would see on ‘Jeopardy.’ That made it a lot more difficult and kept us on the edge of our seats.”
Kennedy said that a few members of his team had prior experience with trivia.
“A few of us have been to trivia nights before, and one of our housemates is kind of a trivia buff in his spare time,” he said. “I would consider myself the wild card for our group. Every group needs a wild card.”
Kennedy added that his favorite part of the show was “how conducive it was to dancing.”
Following their win, Kennedy and his team quickly put the prize money to good use.
“We took the prize money and bought groceries for our house for three weeks including the housemates that couldn’t make it,” he said. “Then, the four of us split what was left and bought ice cream. In the end I got $10 and I don’t have to buy groceries for a month!”
