One bar in 2017. Forty venues now. Same energy.
We run trivia, music bingo, mini golf, and foam parties across PA, NJ, DE, and MD. We're a small team that loves the work, takes it seriously, and has built some really strong partnerships along the way.
Easton, 2017
Founder Gary Carmona was looking for a fun side hustle in 2017. He thought maybe trivia could be it — so he sent a Facebook message to Stoke Coal Fire Pizza in Easton, PA, asked if they'd want to try a trivia night, and they said yes.
He showed up an hour early to set up. That's when he realized he'd forgotten the extension cord.
He sprinted across the street to the Family Dollar, grabbed one with minutes to spare, plugged everything in, and ran the night. The PA system he'd brought turned out to be a little smaller than he'd hoped (lesson learned). But somehow it went better than he could have asked for. Stoke booked him for the following week. Within a few months, three more bars wanted in.
Stoke is still on our schedule, eight years later. They were the first one. They're still around. We love them for it.
Three bars. Then ten. Then everywhere.
By 2018, we were running weekly trivia at 10 venues across the Lehigh Valley. Gary had started hiring other hosts because one person couldn't cover the schedule anymore.
Then COVID happened. Bars closed. Weekly trivia paused. The team shrank to almost nothing. We took the hit like everyone else.
When live events came back, we picked up where we left off and started growing again. Today we host Trivia, Music Madness, and Music Bingo at 40+ weekly venues across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. We bring mobile mini golf and foam parties to private events, weddings, schools, fundraisers, summer block parties, kids' birthdays, and corporate offsites.
Past event clients we've gotten to work with include Crayola, Ulta Beauty, Wacker Chemical, Princeton University, the Hunterdon County School District, Harmony Township PTA, and Forks Parks & Recreation — those bookings still make us smile.
Honestly? Hiring is the hardest part.
Format and pacing are things we can teach. Finding hosts who genuinely fit our culture is the hard part — people who can walk into a room, read it inside thirty seconds, hold a mic, manage the energy, and turn total strangers into weekly regulars.
When we find one of those people, we hang onto them. Most of the team came in through referrals from other hosts. Around fifteen of us are out there hosting weekly across four states, and most have been part of Points Up for years.
If hosting at Points Up sounds like your kind of thing, we're always keeping an eye out. Become a host.
What our best partnerships have in common.
The venues that have stuck with us the longest all share one thing — the whole team genuinely cares about the customers. Bartenders, servers, kitchen, managers, all of them. Everybody's thinking about whether somebody's coming back next week, not just about how fast to flip seats.
That's the kind of place we build great partnerships with. When we find a venue running like that, we tend to stick around for a long time. (See: Stoke Coal Fire Pizza, eight years and counting.)
If your venue feels like that, we'd love to hear from you.
Want to work with us?
Tell us about your venue or event — we'll be back to you within 48 hours with available dates and pricing.