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The Wave
Jonathon Page can still recall the despair that began to take hold after Covid forced his Long Island-based entertainment business to shut down.
“We took a tremendous hit and I was able to hold it together for the first four or five months,” said Page, whose company, Party Train DJ Entertainment, was booking 250 events annually prior to the pandemic. “But then it started to get to me. I mean I went from being a workaholic to not being able to go out of the house,” he said. “You start to wonder about what you’ll do with your future.”
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The Queens native admits he didn’t expect to find the next chapter in his career when he created a simple trivia game as a favor to his girlfriend Monique. “She was stuck at home like everyone else and wanted me to make up a game that she and her girlfriends could play on Facebook to pass the time.”
Page said he found an app that allowed him to design a parody of the popular quiz show Jeopardy, which caught the attention of online spectators. “Literally hundreds of people were watching the feed and commenting,” he noted.
About a month later, one of Page’s Long Beach clients asked him to host an in-person trivia game at his restaurant. “When restrictions began to ease, places still couldn’t have enough people to warrant a DJ and you couldn’t do Karaoke, so a trivia night seemed like the perfect solution.”
From there, the popularity of the game show genre snowballed. “The bar was at capacity with 24 people the first night I hosted and I had sellout crowds for the next eight weeks,” Page said.
Today, the entertainment entrepreneur’s newest company, Game Night Mobile Game Show, specializes in bringing an interactive game show experience to all kinds of public and private venues, from corporate events to intimate family get-togethers.
“We come to your party and recreate a stage with buzzers, podiums, video and sound effects,” said Page. A live host with a mic and a producer–whose computer connects to a customer’s television for real-time on-screen questions and answers–are also included.
Parodies of Jeopardy, Family Feud, Pyramid and others are on the menu as well as several that Page and his team make up on their own, including a speed trivia game and a charade-like contest called “Say What.”
“Crowd participation is always encouraged and laughter is guaranteed,” Page insisted.
The game show craze has caught on in Rockaway, where Game Night Mobile has already hosted at least 30 parties, including a recent family event for the Breezy Point Cooperative that drew 160 participants.
Page admits he felt a touch of nostalgia when his company was hired to host a get-together at the house his mom once rented on Beach 139th Street. “I spent all of my summers in Breezy–where my grandparents lived–until I was 18 years old,” he said. “And I of course spent time at mom’s place as a teen too, so it was pretty cool to come back to that house.”
Parties on the peninsula now account for 20 percent of Page’s business. “I put a Facebook post on the Rockaway business page and I was shocked that so many people were sharing it on their personal pages, that doesn’t usually happen.”
Last year, Page and his girlfriend took the show on the road to Tampa, Florida, where they added a host of restaurants, bars, yacht clubs and schools–which have become Page’s biggest corporate client–to their customer list.
“I’ve hosted a New Year’s Eve game night for Captain Paul Herbert from the TV show Wicked Tuna and I’ve gone to a client’s house early on Christmas morning so she and her family could play games in the living room while they were still in their pajamas,” Page recounted. “They were among the most memorable events for sure.”
Page now travels back and forth between Florida and New York, leaving his business partner Rob Herbst to run the larger set-ups in the city and on Long Island.
“I was nervous coming down to Florida initially but since we arrived last summer, bookings have blown up,” said Page. “We really got lucky because this aspect of the business kept us afloat during the pandemic and subsequently helped keep our original entertainment company alive.”
Page said repeat business drives him and his team to keep their trivia content relevant. “On an average week we spend at least eight hours preparing material for the games we’ll use in the upcoming seven days,” he said. “We listen to the news, research the latest pop culture and watch other game shows for additional ideas.” A new buzzer game that tests TV show trivia from earlier decades is one future possibility, according to Page. He said he’s looking to hire stand-up comedians to fill in as game show hosts as well. “I think they’ll add to the overall good time and make for an even more fun-filled experience,” he explained. “And that’s what we want.”
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