Knowledge is about to take to the streets: Trivial Pursuit comes to Leeds

A free, city-wide reimagining of the board game lands this summer, marking 400 years of Leeds one question at a time. Running Saturday 25 July to Sunday 30 August.

There is a decent pub-quiz question hiding in plain sight, and it goes like this: what links Marks & Spencer, the first fizzy water you ever drank, and a stretch of the early British internet? The answer, of course, is Leeds. All three started here, or passed through, and this summer the city is turning that long inventory of facts into something you can walk around.

To mark 400 years since Leeds was granted its royal charter, LeedsBID is transforming the city centre into a live, playable version of Hasbro’s Trivial Pursuit. The whole thing is free, it runs for five weeks, and the premise is exactly what you would hope. You move around the city, answering one question per category, earning a wedge each time you get one right. Collect all six and you head to Leeds City Museum for the final question. Six wedges, one board, the size of a city centre.

The categories are the classic six: Entertainment, Geography, Sports & Leisure, Science and Nature, History, and Art & Literature. Each is anchored to a key location with a pop-up mini exhibition, the kind of thing that mixes the trivia everybody half-knows with the trivia almost nobody does, plus an exhibit or two to bring the story properly to life. There are classic and junior questions throughout, so it works whether you are a serious quizzer or eight years old.

The facts that built a city

The fun of all this is in the source material, because Leeds has quietly punctuated national life for four centuries. Take the carbonated water. In 1767 Joseph Priestley, living next door to a Leeds brewery, got permission to collect the gas bubbling off the fermenting beer vats. He suspended a bowl of water above them, watched the carbon dioxide dissolve in, and produced the first artificially carbonated water the world had seen. He called it artificial Pyrmont water. The rest of us eventually called it soda, and an entire global industry followed from a man hanging a bowl over some beer.

Then there is Marks & Spencer. In 1884 Michael Marks, a Polish-Jewish immigrant who had arrived in Leeds with almost nothing and very little English, set up a stall at Kirkgate Market under a slogan that did away with haggling entirely: don’t ask the price, it’s a penny. The Penny Bazaar worked. A decade later he took on a cashier named Tom Spencer, and the rest is on every high street in the country.

And Leeds keeps decent company in the famous-faces department too. Peter O’Toole, Mel B, Marco Pierre White, the cyclist Beryl Burton, and a long line of innovators, artists and sporting heroes besides.

Famous Loiners, on hand to test you

A cast of well-known names with Leeds connections are appearing digitally throughout, looking back at the city and ahead of it. Leeds-born presenter and podcaster Alex Zane takes Entertainment, historian Ruth Goodman takes History, and cricket commentator Daniel Norcross takes Sports & Leisure.

Zane filmed his sections in Roundhay Park, telling the story of the park’s remarkable concert history. As he puts it, it was a privilege to come home and tell the story of Roundhay’s musical heritage, from Madonna to Robbie Williams to Lewis Capaldi, in such a landmark year for the city.

Beyond the three category hosts, a roll-call of national and local faces drop in to pose a Question for Today: actors Bob Cryer, Jeremy Dyson, Angela Griffin, Jim Moir and Kate O’Toole, broadcaster John Craven, and the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey. The sporting side brings Ryder Cup-winning captain Luke Donald, rugby league’s Julia Lee, snooker’s Oliver Lines and squash champion James Willstrop. Angela Griffin, a Loiner herself, called it a fun and engaging way to introduce visitors to the Leeds story, and an honour to be part of.

Helping things along across the weekends are two hosts whose names you will want to say out loud at least once: Trivia Newton-John and Quiz Pine.

Where it ends, and what you can win

The game finishes in Brodrick Hall inside Leeds City Museum, the grand room named after Cuthbert Brodrick, the architect behind several of the city’s most recognisable buildings. It is a fitting last stop, given the hall itself is part of the story it asks you to recall. Sara Merritt, Principal Keeper at the museum, said they were excited to host the game as part of Leeds400, calling it a way to celebrate knowledge, curiosity and everything that makes Leeds Leeds.

There is plenty to play for. One player is drawn daily to win a £500 Hays Travel voucher, and completing the full board, all six wedges and the final question, enters you for a weekly bundle of prizes from the likes of Everyman Cinema, Leeds Playhouse, Trinity Leeds, Waterstones, The Met Hotel and more.

Five weeks, six wedges, 400 years. From 25 July, the board game leaves the table and the questions move out onto the streets. It is a celebration of Leeds told one question at a time, and the only real homework is showing up.

Trivial Pursuit Leeds runs Saturday 25 July to Sunday 30 August 2026. Free to play. Find out more at trivialpursuitleeds.com.