How an online game for friends raised thousands for coronavirus response

Jay Flynn, who lives in the U.K., started the online trivia night for friends and family, but it quickly developed an audience of hundreds of thousands.

Video Transcript

JAY FLYNN: Let's get you going then. Question one.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hi. My name is Jay. I live in Darwen in Lancashire, and I'm the host of the Virtual Pub Quiz live on a Thursday and a Saturday night.

I decided just before, just as the pubs were locked down to try and put the Virtual Pub Quiz together for my quiz teams and also friends and family and, you know, just something to entertain us while we couldn't go to the pubs. And it went viral.

So I set up an event on my personal Facebook page inviting friends and family, explaining what I was going to do, that I'd do a live stream and just ask some questions and get involve-- you know, if everyone wanted to get involved. And I don't really use Facebook events at all, didn't really know how it worked. And I'd set the event to public, so it meant that everyone could share it and everyone could send it to their friends and their family across the country.

And it just went crazy. By the time that the first quiz came around on the 26th of March, there was over half a million people that were interested in the Facebook event looking at wanting to come along. There could be hundreds of thousands more people-- families, et cetera-- watching. It's an incredible, incredible number. And it's great to know so many people are getting involved.

So I set up the JustGiving page here in the UK for the NHS. I've not asked anyone to donate through playing the quiz. I've not forced anyone to donate. I've made it very clear from the start that the quiz is free to participate in. What I've said is if people feel they are in a position to donate, because not everyone is at the moment, especially with the current climate, there was the JustGiving link. And if they wanted to, they could go ahead and donate towards the NHS. And there's been a fantastic response-- over 120,000 pounds raised in the three weeks since I launched the JustGiving page.

It's just about finding things to do and keep going. This Virtual Pub Quiz, doing this on YouTube, you know, twice a week live and all the specialist quizzes, is giving me something to keep me going. But it's been tough. But there are a lot of people who are in a lot worse situations than I am.

It's been lovely seeing how well-- how well it's been received and how it's touched a lot of people. It's helping them with their own isolation. And not just in the UK-- I've had messages from all over the world. And it's been lovely to know that I'm doing something to help.