Mitch DeSantis is Milwaukee Record’s Rural/Northwoods Wisconsin Correspondent. Find his dispatches HERE.
You might think you know trivia. Perhaps you think it’s a person with a microphone at a dimly lit Bay View bar where you recall pop-culture facts over a table that resembles a battlefield of crushed tall boys and pull tabs. But in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, trivia isn’t just a weeknight pastime—it’s a full-on lifestyle.
Welcome to the World’s Largest Trivia Contest, now in its 55th year: a 54-hour marathon hosted by WWSP 90FM’s renegade DJs, drawing over 300 teams and 11,000+ players. As a participant and college radio alum, I know it’s more than answering questions—it’s a chaotic, sleep-deprived obsession where reality blurs and community shines. One of the most uniquely Wisconsin experiences you’ll ever have.
This here is my tale of survival through Trivia 55: No Limit!
The (Sort Of) Calm Before the Contest
It starts quietly enough.
The weekend before Trivia 55 begins, Stevens Point holds its own version of the Olympic torch lighting: a secret movie screening at Rogers Cinema. The film isn’t revealed until the lights dim and the projector hums to life, casting flickering images to a sold-out crowd armed with notebooks.
This year? Blade Runner – The Final Cut.
A neon-drenched classic brimming with existential questions: What does it mean to be human? Can machines feel? And how many product placements can Ridley Scott cram into a single shot?
I watch it four times over the course of a week. My favorite viewing? On a stationary bike in my apartment gym, whispering strange voice notes into my phone. Other tenants looked concerned. Rightfully so.
This is how Trivia starts to burrow into your brain. A film, a notebook, good intentions—and suddenly you’re scribbling like a red-string detective chasing a decades-old cold case.
As the big weekend nears, Stevens Point transforms. Storefronts cheer on local teams. Hand-painted signs pop up. Homes and trivia HQs get decked out with mascots and team names, proudly claiming their turf in the friendly chaos. Community pride goes full tilt.
Then there’s Friday morning.
Every year, I (Mitch DeSantis, a.k.a. DJ Mantooth) and my buddy Kyle Piecynski (a.k.a. DJ Fun Dad) return to the airwaves to kick off the festivities. From 6 to 8 a.m., we spin hype tunes and trivia classics to fire up the masses.
After us, alumni DJs keep the hype alive all day as the clock ticks toward 6 p.m. and the contest launch—though this year, a technical meltdown delayed the start by four hours until fellow alum “Q” swooped in with a clutch Google Forms workaround that saved the whole weekend.
Assembling the Trivia Dream Team
My trivia team, The Cult of Pope Portesi, is a mix of over-prepared obsessives and folks who were promised snacks and Point Special Beer and accidentally stayed the whole weekend. Each type of player is extremely valuable. We range from spreadsheet-wielding goddesses like my wife Shelby to people who want to wear costumes, stir the Bloody Mary bar, and argue over what a muffled lyric in a music snippet question could be… that would be mostly me.
Our headquarters is a disaster of snacks, laptops, extension cords, radio receivers, and bodies. Everyone contributes. Over the years, we’ve built up a team of 90FM alumni, family, and friends from Milwaukee, and we’ve developed traditions and rituals. Sacred systems that exist solely to keep us (somewhat) functioning during 54 hours of mental and physical collapse. This year features homemade tortillas, a baked potato bar, and an Italian sausage and bratwurst haul from my father to stimulate the frontal lobe for trivia questions.
By Sunday morning, you’re not even sure what meal you’re eating. Is it breakfast? Dinner? Second lunch? There’s just always something on the table.
It’s like running a newsroom, a kitchen, and a marathon all at the same time.
Running Questions and Trivia Stone
Every year, I rock a velour tracksuit, channeling my inner Tony Soprano. The stretchy waistband can handle the inevitable gluttony, and it’s fun to look like a dingus during the public contest portions, like the Stone Clues and Running Questions. These involve showing up at a location to tackle tasks designed to get you moving after a night of beer, Gatorade, and coffee.
Trivia Stone comes first—a multi-hour, scavenger-style car rally that kicks off at 4:15 a.m. on Saturday, with additional Stone adventures throughout the weekend. You get cryptic radio clues leading you across Stevens Point to find a designated volunteer waiting for you to find them for points.
My wife and I drive through dark backroads until we find it: a line of 60+ Trivia pilgrims in cars driving through the roads all looking for the same thing.
Then, like something out of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, two figures appear from the mist. One is wearing a tinfoil cone hat. The other wears a full-on Viking helmet made of tinfoil. They step out from the shadows like mythical customs agents, gleefully stamping our rulebooks. It’s beautifully surreal.
Now, at this point in the contest, I’ve already been awake for a full 24 hours. (I managed to squeeze in a 45-minute nap before the Running Questions kicked off.) This is where teams sprint around downtown Stevens Point, matching logos, numbers, and obscure clues held within the businesses along Main Street at 7 a.m.—a caffeine-fueled scavenger hunt. It’s basically a group hallucination.
The Descent into Madness
By Sunday, time stops meaning anything. You’ve probably had fewer than nine hours of sleep across three days. You’ve napped in chairs, under tables, snuggling your laptop as if it were a childhood teddy bear, just hoping you’d dream up an answer. (You never do, you mostly just fart up the space.)
At some point during the weekend—usually when the sleep hits just wrong—teams start taunting each other online with memes and elaborate fake beefs between rival squads.
It keeps me awake and laughing—at the edge of collapse.
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What started as a high-energy, fully staffed team on Friday night becomes a skeleton crew by Sunday night. A few brave souls—five of us this time—stumble toward the finish line like survivors of a trivia apocalypse. Our eyes are glazed over. We mumble keywords to each other like lost monks reciting sacred scrolls, and in the end we place the best we ever have in almost 15 years of playing the contest…107th.
Postscript
Shout-out to my team! Not all of them made the photo, but you know who you are and I’m forever grateful for your camaraderie during the weekend! I friggin’ love you guys.
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