The Cock Tavern pubin Hackney, east
London, is using technology to help recover from losses caused by
the smoking ban - it is boosting revenue by 40% twice a week with
online interactive quiz nights.
The service, from
National Quiz, uses
the internet to link pubs across the UK, enabling them to compete
against each other in real time.
Each pub submits answers to a set of multiple-choice questions
that is visible to all other participating venues.
The system identifies the winning pub based on the most correct
answers or the fastest response to questions if there is a tie.
National Quiz is using three load-balanced web servers and a
database server hosted by
Hostway using a
VMWare platform, which enables the system to be scaled up or
down easily by using virtualised servers.
Miriam Raggett Power, licensee of the Cock Tavern, said, "We
never thought we would come to rely on server virtualisation to
sell more pints."