A BOOM in pub quizzes is delivering plenty of cheer for York-based SpeedQuizzing.

The company in Heworth Green reports half yearly revenues up 120% to just a quarter less than the whole of 2021.

This is the 'strongest ever' result for the tech company founded by brothers Alan and John Leach in 2011.

Last week, the company reported record revenues £430,000 over the first six months of this year, with it set to become a million pound business by the year end.

Its online platform and app are now used in pubs and bars to host approximately 1,200 quizzes every week – with a further 300 weekly quizzes running in over 40 countries, including the USA, Australia and South Africa.

Alan, who was in the York band Shed 7, says the game was created to make pub quizzing much faster, to help foil cheating.

The company saw a boom during lockdown for the games, as people played online, with the boom continuing as publicans saw how tech can revolutionise their entertainment programme to offer new experiences and attract more customers.

The company has a team of software developers to keep improving the game, plus others writing the questions.

Operations manager Phil Qua said: "We’re finding that pubs and bars are increasingly turning to quizzes rather than live sport to drive footfall and sales on traditionally quieter nights of the week.

“This, coupled with more pubs embracing tech to deliver new entertainment and experiences, has meant we’ve seen a real surge in demand for our software, with SpeedQuizzing events more popular than ever after the Covid-enforced hiatus.”

Landlord Mark Pinckney from The Deramore Arms in York said: "From taking the faff out of preparing for and hosting quizzes, through to driving some of our biggest crowds of the week, SpeedQuizzing has transformed our pub quiz night.

"Since we started hosting SpeedQuizzing nights in 2018, we've seen a huge swell in the number of people coming down to take part and we're now at the point where we're averaging about 16 teams and close to 100 people every time.”

SpeedQuizzing recently launched its first-ever national advertising campaign, in partnership with TV’s Paul Sinha, aimed at helping more people to find their nearest smartphone pub quiz through SQFinder.com.

SpeedQuizzing is the only quiz provider to publicly promote individual events on behalf of pubs and bars, and its giant billboards advertising the site can currently be seen next to some of the UK’s busiest motorways.