Fun & Free Trivia Nights at Lougheed House for the Beltline Community

The Cause

We want to offer a series of free trivia nights in 2024 after piloting a similar program in 2023.

Like many during the pandemic, Lougheed House struggled to get visitors into the house and attending our programs, largely due to the cost of tickets. Because of the limited number of people we could welcome into our spaces due to pandemic restrictions, the pricing of our ticketed programs went up and numbers went down. When we resumed regular operations with no restrictions, we didn’t notice a change in those numbers. Beginning in 2023, we reimagined the type of programs we offered and shifted to free programming whenever possible. Under this direction, we hosted several garden workshops, garden tours, and piloted our trivia night series. Each of our programs in 2023 were at capacity, and it is our conclusion that due to this shift to free programs, we are able to better attract our community members into the museum.

After this program was piloted, we decided that we want to continue to offer it, free of charge, throughout 2024, but as a bigger and better event. Each month would feature a themed trivia night, partnered with a local restaurant to offer food and beverage purchase, as well as a prize to the winning team. Our main target audience for these events is our Beltline community, which is a lower-income inner-city neighbourhood in Calgary. This gives back to the community as it offers an opportunity for community members to attend a no-cost, fun, adult-only evening event in Calgary, something that is missing in the event market. As entry into the house is part of the free ticket, it also provides attendees the opportunity to explore the museum free of charge, making us more accessible. We are working hard to make ourselves appear less intimidating to our neighbours and demonstrate that it is their space too.

This opportunity falls under the “Arts and Culture” subcategory for our Southern Community Market. In 2023, our trivia nights gave us the opportunity to partner with organizations such as Calgary International Film Festival and Calgary Pride to participate in events and influence our themes. Our restaurant partner for these events, Last Best Brewery, came through our connections with the Beltline Neighbourhood Association. This cooperative approach to these events means that we can widen the reach to those communities that we most want to feel welcome and at home here.

Who Will it Benefit?

Beneficiaries of this event are our local Beltline community, as well as those in a low-income bracket, though these two categories are not mutually exclusive. As Lougheed House moves forward in our plan to reimagine our programming and spaces, we are looking to deepen our connections with our local community, and establish ourselves as a place of refuge that community members can come to and feel welcome in. Many events in Calgary have an entry fee or require purchase of food and drink to participate in lieu of an entry fee. We are looking to welcome into our spaces those who have not previously had an opportunity to visit our space, and through free programming we will be able to do that. Of the three trivia events that we have held in 2023 so far, the vast majority of attendees had never been to Lougheed House, and many of them had not even heard of it, illustrating that we are heading in the right direction of this goal.