On Thursday nights at 7pm, the Middlebury Marquis Theater comes to life. Town residents, Middlebury students and people from neighboring areas come together for trivia night, eager to partake in some friendly competition.
These weekly trivia nights are free to participate for teams of up to six. The theater serves drink specials at the cafe bar and winning teams receive prizes for their trivial aptitude, according to the Marquis website.
The bar and cafe space at the Marquis often begins filling up at around 4:30pm on Thursdays, as enthusiastic trivia-goers scramble to secure optimal seating, according to Arseneau. The event's growing popularity is reflected by Middlebury students who speak highly of the event.
“My team and I go to trivia almost every Thursday during the off season. It’s one of our favorite traditions and a great way to engage with the community and support local businesses while having a great time,” Sammy Hausman ’25, who plays softball at the college, wrote in an email to The Campus. “Only downside is that it has been so hard to get a table with how popular the event has gotten.”
Trivia night at the Marquis is a time-honored tradition. Big Guys Entertainment owners Pierre Vachon and Vinny Herbert, have hosted it since 2015.
“We’ve been doing trivia since the early 2000's, all over. We did shows here in Middlebury in different spots,” Vachon said of Big Guys Entertainment.
Vachon described how all of their trivia questions are “individually made,” and authentic to Big Guys Entertainment, created without the use of pre-produced trivia, media or videos.
“We joke about it all the time because I never know what's going to happen when I start doing trivia one night,” Vachon told The Campus.
Vachon said he and Herbert aim to make the event inclusive to as many attendees as possible. His general rule of thumb is that sixty percent of the audience should be able to answer most of the questions he generates.
“I want to make it more fun than so challenging that you feel inadequate when you leave. I don’t want anyone to feel like, ‘Oh man, we’re losers’,” Vachon said.
Vachon added that he enjoys crafting a broad range of questions for his audience so that people of all ages can enjoy, including kids. He aims for the weekly event to serve as a space where everyone can have fun and interact lightheartedly with one another.
The night has both a regular local crowd and a regular student crowd, who come together within the space for some community and competition.
“It’s a very inclusive environment and honestly very competitive,” Emily Strasburg ’25 wrote in an email to The Campus. “The local Middlebury attendees are avid trivia members, so the few times that I have gone it has always been a run for the money.”
Vachon moved to Middlebury sixteen years ago following the end of his 25 year career as a professional wrestler. He now owns Frog Alley Tattoo and Body Piercing on Bakery Lane in downtown Middlebury, along with the DJ company Big Guys Entertainment.
The tradition dates back to a time before current general manager Justin Arsenau joined the theater’s staff in 2016.
Arseneau moved to Middlebury from Manchester, N.H., following his deployment in the army, and became involved with the Marquis as a beer representative for the theater while working as a wine and beer sales representative for Vermont-based Baker Distributing.
About a year after his initial introduction to the theater as a beer representative, Arseneau joined the Marquis staff in the fall of 2016. Arseneau would occasionally bartend for trivia nights when he first came on board, but nowadays as general manager, he tries to steer clear of the crowds.
“Trivia's so busy that I’m usually not there for it because I'm just in the way, I'm just another body taking up a seat,” Arseneau told The Campus.
The Marquis is currently closed for renovations as the facade of the building is under construction. Arseneau said the interior of the theater will remain unchanged, and trivia night is set to return on May 2.
Both Arseneau and Vachon expressed excitement at getting back to hosting trivia night following the month-long construction-induced hiatus.
“We try to make the Marquis a very entertainment-centric place, and we are looking forward to getting back to that,” Vachon said.
