It was a friendly competition as students faced pop culture trivia to win Best Buy gift certificates of $100, $150 and $250 Friday night.

Three rounds of the interactive game ThinkFast were played after the bands David Costa, Aurora Sky and Flying Just Below Radar at the Grand Ballroom in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Ballroom Friday night at University Board’s Late Night at the Union Part Deux.

“This is where the majority of the crowd was,” said UB vice chair Melissa Schaefer.

About 10 people tested their knowledge in round one, 15 in round two and 30 in round three.

Round-two winner Ryan Kerch, sophomore biology major, left the Grand Ballroom with $150 to spend at Best Buy and the satisfaction of beating his friend, Chris Kromphardt.

“Revenge is sweet,” Kerch said.

Kromphardt was the $100 winner of round one and made it in the final four with Kerch in round two.

For the friends, the game was fun and they were able to put some trivial knowledge to use.

“All that useless knowledge has paid off,” said Kromphardt, sophomore political science major, who plans on driving to Champaign to purchase video games or some movies.

Kerch on the other hand plans to use his money towards an XBOX 360 or for a lot of CDs.

Scott Conway, junior political science major, was the $250 round-three winner and will use his gift cards for an XBOX 360.

Conway, like Kromphardt and Kerch, was competing against his friends but when he made it to the final four his friends, Harrison Cole and Jerrad Wilson, were by his side shouting answers to help him win.

Wilson was in the final four in both round one and two.

Although his friends were heard supporting him, Conway wished his girlfriend, Loren Potz, had been there.

“I wish she could have been here to see me kick butt,” he said.

All contestants had to answer 20 questions about television, music, history and sports.

One question students had to answer was ‘In which state would you be in if you were in a town called Burnt Corn?’ The possible answers were Idaho, Maine, Alabama, Maryland or Mississippi and the correct answer was Alabama.

However, the game was set up so that people could score points with ease even if they did not know that answer.

Three clues were given and the first two revealed on of the wrong answers while the last clue told the correct answer.

However in the final-four round clues were not given and contestants had to buzz in their answers. One question about the spelling of cemetery stumped all of the contestants in the third round’s final four.

Some spellings given were “cemetary” and “cementary.”

All three winners thought the questions were fairly easy except for Kerch who was stumped by the sports questions.

“(I’m ) too much of a nerd,” he said.

Host Will Krahn said the difficulty of the questions could be controlled.

“You can go from ridiculously easy to the impossible,” he said.

Krahn has been a host for five years and finds that the crowds like the one Friday nights are always screaming and excited while playing the game.

“I’m ecstatic every time,” he said about seeing the crowd.

As the crowd answered away, Krahn read the questions and often danced to the music of the game show’s DJ Wade Marr.

The music was good and the host was down to earth, Conway said.

The crowd reacted well to the music as some students danced in their chairs.

“The DJ is extremely important,” Krahn said. “He controls the flow of the show. If he plays poopy music, the crowd is poopy.”

Andy Ho, a senior secondary education major, calls out bingo numbers during the Unversity Board sponsored “Night at the Union” at 7th STreet undergroundon Friday evening. (Jay Grabiec/The Daily Eastern News)

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