The web and mobile technology were still in their infancy. And one man had a dream.

Armed with a degree and years of theatre, radio and animation experience, QuizzaMe founder, Tony, arrived in Milan with a grand idea – to take the excitement of a cabaret show, a traditional pub trivia night, a live band and everything that was classic in entertainment and roll it up into a ball of such scintillating simplicity it would transcend the category of mere game quiz. It would create a show.

With a team of designers, programmers and graphic designers on speed dial, Tony created a wireless keypad that was neither so big and heavy it would cause carpal tunnel, or too small that it looked like a garage door opener.

And so the QuizzaMi legend was born!

After nearly 10 years leading the Italian market with over 350 weekly events and large-scale events for more than 800 players, QuizzaMi’s world domination has begun! Adopting the ‘QuizzaMe’ name for the English market, this revolutionary interactive game-show platform has now launched in Spain, America and Australia.

Let us imagine for a moment how things were way back when in 2003. Facebook hadn’t been invented, Delta Goodrem won seven Aria awards (go figure), the Iraq war was waged, the iTunes music store launched, the Governator took charge of California and kids flocked to Finding Nemo.

In Italy, QuizzaMi was a weekly local pub event and, while very well received, setting up was quite a challenge. Without wireless technology, Quiz Masters arrived at venues well before an event to set up the cords. Yes, all buzzers still had cords running back to the main computer. Some venues installed the cords to hang from the ceiling, or simply looped them around whatever beams and light fittings were available, packing them up at the end of the night. See how to play for more information on playing QuizzaMe.

This sometimes added over two hours to a Quiz Master’s day. Yes. Originally, all the game information was stored in the buzzers, so only a limited amount of questions could be asked, and each game had to be separately loaded in advance. Searching for a better way, QuizzaMi designers and programmers toiled over several years to integrate more functionality—to allow buzzers to communicate with a computer and respond in real time.

Eventually, the QuizzaMe buzzers you hold in your hands today were unleashed on an unsuspecting trivia-loving public.

And humble trivia events haven’t been the same since.