ST. CLOUD - About 2,000 trivia buffs are gearing up for a Trivia Weekend marathon, hosted by St. Cloud State University's radio station 88.1 FM KVSC.

The 37th annual contest kicks off Friday at 5:00 p.m. and runs 50 consecutive hours until Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Around 60 trivia teams will be competing against each other by answering questions read on-air.

KVSC station manager Jo McMullen-Boyer says they rely on hundreds of volunteers to keep the contest moving.

"We end up having a need for about 40 volunteers an hour for 50 straight hours. We have this phone bank with anywhere from 25 to 30 plus people answering the calls that are constantly coming in from teams guessing questions."

The contest has drastically grown over the years. It was tailored after a similar radio contest on WWSP in Stevens Point by SCSU students in 1980. The motivating idea behind trivia weekend was relatively simple: to alleviate winter cabin fever setting in.

The contest developed into what McMullen-Boyer calls "the beast". Questions are read around the clock. The campus TV station UTVS provides ongoing visual coverage of the mayhem. Staff and volunteers are constantly running to get food to feed phone bank volunteers. The event even comes with a band (The Shake a Hamster Band) that produces music in the basement of Stewart Hall during the contest.

Trivia teams range from high school students to adults and they play from around the world.  Of the 60-65 teams that play, 20-25 typically aren't in the St. Cloud area. McMullen-Boyer says they even get teams participating from other countries.

"We've always had active military service members who might be stationed in Afghanistan or Iraq who get involved. We're told that their supervisors try to give them "computer duty" for the weekend."

Every year the contest has a new theme. This year it's "Trivia Cruisin': Racing, Road Tripping and Rock & Roll.

Teams can continue to register for the contest until 4:30 p.m. on Friday. For more information on Trivia Weekend, click here.

More From AM 1240 WJON