Iconic ‘Benji’s Quiz’ nears two-decade milestone of entertaining Victoria

Local icon of Victoria’s music scene, restaurant industry and pub quiz night, Benji Coey is excited to be nearing the 20-year anniversary of his beloved quiz night. 

There’s trivia, and then there is a “Benji Quiz,” which anyone who’s experienced one before will be quick to tell you is markedly different and unique. 

To Benji, the difference lies in the production and the joy his patrons experience being prioritized over simply knowing the most about everything. 

Every show takes around 10 hours to prepare for. Benji comes to each one equipped with visuals for a projector screen, a sample pad to control music and sound effects throughout, plus, the quizmaster has also introduced prizes to keep people motivated and coming back. 

For those who don’t know, one of Benji’s most iconic and anticipated portions of the eight-round affair is the ‘Inky Dinky’ round. In this, the quizmaster will ask the audience a riddle, expecting back a two-word answer, where both words are two syllables and both syllables rhyme.

One example of an Inky Dinky he has used before at quiz night is: “Sweaty relaxation for all of the animals,” to which the answer could be “fauna sauna.” 

Though that answer would be correct, Benji always encourages creativity and will have everyone read the answers they got so the validity of each one can be discussed as a group of “normal people.”

Inky Dinky’s are just one very small piece of the puzzle when it comes to Benji and his quiz nights, so let’s go back in time a bit to when it all began to get a better idea of how it came to be. 

The origins of Benji’s Quiz

Benji moved to Victoria from England in 2006 after being convinced by a friend who had made the same move.

He and his mate had known each other since their school days and Benji had been coming out to BC to visit his friend every summer. This led him to eventually say, “Why not, let’s just get out there.”

When Benji arrived in Victoria, he had just finished spending six years working in investment analysis so he took a year off of work, opting to just play music and get the lay of the land. 

After his year off, Benji and some of his friends opened the Fort Street Cafe.

“It was just a lunchtime joint and then we converted it into a live music venue and a bar,” Benji told Victoria Buzz. “Then for five nights a week, we did live music down there.”

The now defunct cafe was on Fort Street in the space that used to be more exposed, just below Russell Books. 

The Fort Street Cafe is where Benji did his first Quiz Night, which was built on the same foundation of production-first as his quiz nights now, but were quite different as well. 

“It used to be called the Friday Quiz, which was the birth of the quiz show,” he said. 

“It was quite a raucous show. I always had a co-host, I had my drum kit next to me and he had his hammond organ next to him. We’d play all the songs and there’d be sing-a-longs and stuff.”

The cafe was open for around six years, closing in September 2012, which Benji says came about because the landlords were unhappy with the nightlife aspect of the business. 

“When the business closed, I just started doing my one-man show and started doing that at Spinnakers I believe, initially, every Sunday night, and then did my Friday show at the Copper Owl once a month.”

During this time, Benji was quizzing, doing some painting on the side to make money and keeping a keen eye out for a new space to create a new venue in town. 

This hope for a new venue came to fruition when he and some friends opened Northern Quarter in 2015. 

The Northern Quarter was beloved and well-known while it was around, and also had a stage that frequently would have live music programming—Benji would do a quiz night every Wednesday. 

After five years, Benji and his partners decided to sell the restaurant in 2019 due to rising costs, financial constraints and feeling burnt out from working so hard for so many years. 

On top of this, Benji had been touring a lot with his band The Lonely, a Roy Orbison tribute band, around the time of the restaurant closure, leaving him feeling spread thin amongst his creative and business pursuits. 

The evolution of Benji’s Quiz

With the closure of the Northern Quarter, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Benji decided to evolve his well-established show, and the quizmaster took on a new pursuit: creating an online quiz show. 

“Once COVID came and the restaurant closed down, the touring finished and the live quizzing also finished, I was kind of like, ‘Hold on, what’re we going to do here?’”

Benji partnered with a creative agency in Victoria and developed an online show called Quiz This.

Together they built a bespoke platform where people around the world could create teams with one another to play the show live, in real time. 

“I would build scenes and animations and have it all controlled from a production panel at my fingertips so I could host the show with a co-host and make all the scenes happen behind me,” Benji explained. 

“It was really trippy.”

Quiz This ended around a year-and-a-half ago now, as Benji has been focussing primarily on his in-person quiz events. 

In this endeavour, Benji is always working to up his game and make his quiz more engaging and entertaining—making his event stand out amongst the numerous trivia nights that take place in the city. 

“I’ve got nothing against trivia, but personally when things get too trivial, it loses meaning and purpose,” said Benji. 

“I like to live in a world of shared knowledge and repackaging shared knowledge, presenting it in a unique way so everyone can play.”

He says that trivia feels too general and unequivocal. 

“It’s very, ‘here is the question, that is the answer, and that’s the way it is’—whereas I want conversation, I want debate, I want some give and take,” said Benji. 

“I want to play with the room.”

He added he likes it when his audiences take a leap of faith on a question they are unsure about in the spirit of fun, regardless of how they do.

“Be brave in saying what you think, because it doesn’t matter—in ten minutes you’ll find out.”

Through the colder months, Benji hosts these at a number of venues, including Whistle Buoy Brewing, the Fernwood Inn, Ile Sauvage and the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. 

He also does lots of private and corporate events, as, by nature, Benji’s Quiz lends itself perfectly to team-building fun. 

Benji also makes a point to take his show on the road to smaller communities throughout Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands—including on Cortes Island where he lives most of the year. 

Plus, the quizmaster often hosts charity galas and events. One is coming up soon where Benji is hosting a quiz for the Victoria Literary Connection Society, to help provide literacy support to those who need it in the capital region. 

If you haven’t experienced a Benji Quiz, he performs quiz nights through the summer months every Monday at the Fernwood Inn and the last Wednesday of every month at Ile Sauvage.