Illinois Question Suppliers

[fosssci]

Our small conference (usually 9-12 schools, depending on consolidations) has been using Avery Enterprises for as long as I've been coaching, but our area coordinator just said that Avery is retiring next year, so we're in need of a new supplier for questions. Apparently the current suggestions are Reinstein and Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance.

To put it as diplomatically as possible, my opinion of Avery Enterprises has been trending increasingly negative the last few years (this year especially had some significant errors), so this is a welcome change. I'm not familiar with Reinstein outside of Masonic competition, and I've never encountered Long Island before, so I'm currently doing some research on their reputations, but I'd love to get a quick idea of what they're like and what some other options might be. Frankly, since these recommendations come from AE, I'm interested in getting a second opinion on what's out there.

Thanks in advance!

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[CCMMSQB_2089]

LIQBA (Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance) is great and they have a reputation for fantastically run tournaments. As for their questions, they are edited by some of the best and most experienced editors out there, and written by some of the best Quiz Bowlers in the nation. I'm not as familiar with Reinstein (by virtue of never having played a Reinstein), but I'd recommend giving LIQBA a try.

[negawardorbust]

LIQBA is held in high regard in the Northeast circuit for their tournaments. They run a tight ship when running tournaments, and I'd expect the same in their writing. I don't know much about Reinstein, but LIQBA is probably a good bet.

[Starman_FalconHeavy]

Hi there. I saw this post in regards to your search for a quiz bowl organization that could provide you packets. I would like to speak to my experience with the Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance. Personally, I have not played the packets written by LIQBA as they are mainly used for local leagues but can speak to the organization itself. The organization primarily operates in the Northeast region but has been expanding. They host multiple different tournaments each year and have been doing a great job at doing so. Within the Northeast quiz bowl community, there has been great feedback and positive views about the organization. Their tournaments are always run on time and Joe, who is the founder and owner of the organization, puts in a lot of time and effort into his tournaments and organization. He is very considerate with the teams and staffers and always strives to improve their experiences while also delivering a good quiz bowl tournament. Without a doubt, I believe that the Long Island Quiz bowl Alliance will be a great fit for your question needs.

[shivaboy123]

Hey! Among all the Quiz bowl question sets being written right now, I would highly recommend the Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance's sets. They differentiate themselves from other set producers in that they put a great deal of emphasis on the quality and polish of their questions. The writing team consists of some of the best writers and editors I've met during my time in Quiz bowl. Each question goes through a unique sort of editing process, in which a question is communally "edited" by the multitude of writers for the respective subject and then edited once more by the head editor(s). Although I am a little biased (I've written questions for their sets in the past), I can say almost definitively that they are one of the best question set producers right now, in terms of quality and reliability; definitely check them out!

[Stained Diviner]

For the regular season I only write middle school questions. As far as I know, your options are NAQT and LIQBA. NAQT writes questions in the IHSA distribution. LIQBA claims that they will write in any format, though if you are going to order from them you should ask them whether they will write 4/4 math for the number of rounds you are ordering. You should also ask to see a sample from LIQBA, because you can't find their questions on the internet, and though they claim to have the best and most experienced writers and editors, it is difficult to judge that statement without seeing their questions or knowing who their great writers and editors are.

[CPiGuy]

For the regular season I only write middle school questions. As far as I know, your options are NAQT and LIQBA. NAQT writes questions in the IHSA distribution. LIQBA claims that they will write in any format, though if you are going to order from them you should ask them whether they will write 4/4 math for the number of rounds you are ordering. You should also ask to see a sample from LIQBA, because you can't find their questions on the internet, and though they claim to have the best and most experienced writers and editors, it is difficult to judge that statement without seeing their questions or knowing who their great writers and editors are.

Co-sign (assuming you are, in fact, a high school coach and not a middle school coach).

Full disclosure -- I write questions for NAQT (and have for several years) and will be editing middle school questions for LIQBA this year. I don't have a direct financial stake in who uses either organization's sets, though, because they pay me a fixed rate based on how much work I do, so I legitimately don't have any ulterior motives here.

If you're looking to transition to longer questions (NAQT's shortest "traditional" questions are usually around 3 lines), NAQT is pretty much the gold standard in "standard" quizbowl question writing. Their questions are very widely used and they've been around for decades. They do also produce shorter, "speedcheck"-style questions of 1-2 lines, which are still written to be as pyramidal as possible, but I'm not sure if they offer, for example, question sets combining the short tossup questions and traditional three-part bonuses. No matter what your format is, it's still worth reaching out to NAQT to ask what your options would be / how much you'd need to pay for it. They have hundreds of customers, so I assume they are used to accommodating unusual formats at least somewhat.

LIQBA, by contrast, is a much newer organization, but their primary focus is writing questions for people transitioning out of using "bad" questions (think Avery, Great AUK, etc). Their questions are primarily like the NAQT "speecheck"/"TV" questions -- designed to be short (1-2 lines) while still being pyramidal and high-quality. They would also be a good choice, especially if maintaining a specific question style/round format is really important to you. They don't have any questions posted online, as far as I know, but I'm sure they'd be able to give you a sample if you reach out to them.

Also, re: LIQBA mystery staff, I think Joe prefers to not publicly/officially name all the writers and editors because he'd rather face criticism himself than throw the writers under the bus; he's said as much in the past. I don't know what his exact position is on this, so I won't namedrop anyone other than myself, but I will say that LIQBA has a large writing staff of various experience levels, an editing staff who all have experience both writing and editing other good quizbowl tournaments, and (most importantly, IMO) a really good culture of collaboration and feedback-giving, so even if the first draft of a question isn't the best, there are a lot of people working together to improve the questions so they're not gonna go out the door if people still think they suck. (To be clear, I am not saying that NAQT or any other organization does send questions out the door if they think they suck, I just think the quality of NAQT questions is a much more known factor because they've been writing questions since before I was alive -- nobody doubts that they're good.)

The thing I can't really speak on is pricing -- NAQT's pricing is available on their website but it might be different if you require a unique format. I honestly don't know what LIQBA's pricing system is, so that's something you should reach out to them and ask about. Honestly, beyond any potential weirdness with question format, pricing is probably going to be the most salient difference -- you will get quality questions from both of these organizations.

[a Joe]

I think Conor said mostly what I could say, except for a few things that I thought would be best for me to clarify, being that I'm the President of the LIQBA:

-- We don't just have speedcheck questions; we also offer longer tossups, similar in length to an NAQT A-set at about 3 full lines, that would be what we use for IHSA-style packets. Of course, if you want speedchecks, that's fine too, but that's not the standard we're using here.

-- If you would like a sample, and this goes for everyone, we strongly encourage you to reach out to us. If you're a tournament organizer, we'll send you a packet that we did for the regular season last year; if you're a player, we'll send you our standard sample packet, since those questions are clear.

-- Pricing for most of our products is custom from order to order; IHSA questions tend to be about $55 per packet, assuming standard specifications, and if you were an Avery Enterprises customer, we are rolling over all prices this year, so if you paid X to him last year, you'll pay X to us this year.

-- The editors are: Danny Peelen (as head editor), Owen Riley (Packetization and associate editor), Aum Mundhe (a longtime LIQBA member and an associate editor), and Conor Thompson (head editor of our Middle School production division). I mainly work the business end of the company when it comes to set production; I set the standards and then give them a lot of space to meet them. However, all inquiries should always go through me, and never my editors.

-- We have quite a large number of writers who do range greatly in experience, from 15-year veterans to people with an interest in contributing a few questions here and there. We retain writers of all experience levels so anyone with an interest can learn the trade. We don't publicly disclose the names of our writers, but anyone who is a writer for us is free to disclose that affiliation.

-- We also have letters of recommendation from a few of our clients that we can share with any tournament organizer who desires them.

Hope this clears some things up; let me know if you have any questions.

[Stained Diviner]

The tossups in NAQT's IHSA-style questions are the same length as the questions in an IS Set, so they are longer and more in line with the question length in the IHSA Tournament. You can see who their customers are here, though when looking through that list you should keep in mind that the Saturday tournaments are not using IHSA-style sets, while the leagues/conferences generally are.

I wrote for NAQT years ago when I was a 15-year veteran, but now I just work on my own sets.

If LIQBA wants to produce questions in IESA format, which is different from IHSA format, I would welcome the competition and would be happy to give them some pointers, one of which is don't buy Avery's email list for $10k.

[a Joe]

If LIQBA wants to produce questions in IESA format, which is different from IHSA format, I would welcome the competition...

Okay

...and would be happy to give them some pointers, one of which is don't buy Avery's email list for $10k.

You're waaaaay off on the price, and it's already paid for itself, but thanks for the pointer, sure.

[Stained Diviner]

I was talking about the big list, not the $2500 list.