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For a local trivia buff, participating in a nationally televised game show was a blast, even if they didn’t walk away with a quarter of a million dollars.

LaGrange resident and City of LaGrange employee, Adam Speas, recently appeared on FOX’s new game show, “The Floor.”

“The Floor” is a trivia battle in which 81 contestants stand on squares on a massive game show floor and compete against each other to take over the whole floor for a grand prize of $250,000. Speas described the competition as trivia meets Risk.

Unfortunately, Adam wasn’t able to take home the grand prize but now that he has been knocked out he can share some of his experience in the competition.

Speas made it to episode seven of 10, outlasting about three-fourths of the original 81 contestants.

Speas said he tried out for the game show after seeing an advertisement on social media.

“I’m a big trivia guy. I play every week at YourPie. I’ve always enjoyed trivia and competition and game shows. I grew up on the Game Show Network. I’m a pop culture nerd, so I saw a post on Facebook that said if you like trivia, apply for this brand new game show,” Speas said.

“I’ve always liked trivia. I have my own trivia podcast, and I play every week,” he said.

Speas said he applied and after some initial trivia and personality tests, he was approved by producers at FOX and was officially on the show.

Speas explained that the game starts with 81 people, and they have their own square with their trivia category.

You have to beat them in a trivia competition in that category to take over their square, which could have grown depending on how many people they have already knocked out, he said. During interviews, the candidates were asked about their trivia specialties. Speas told them he knows a lot about Seinfeld and whiskey, as he has become a whiskey collector.

“When we were about to go to the show, Seinfeld was on the official list of categories but while my wife was driving me to drop me off at the airport, they sent an updated list and Seinfeld was off the list, so I had no idea what my category was going to be,” Speas said.

Speas said when he ended up on the show, he was assigned the category, “Reality TV.”

“I’m not actually a fan of reality TV, but I studied my butt off to try and see what I could do. A lot of people were assigned categories. That’s just kind of how it went, but it was a lot of fun,” he said.

Speas said his weekly sessions of trivia at YourPie in LaGrange couldn’t have hurt, but it’s a very different game. The trivia battle when he was knocked out was very visual, he said. The show where he was knocked out aired last Tuesday, he said.

Speas said he had hoped to be able to challenge someone else rather than having to defend Reality TV.

“It was a lot of fun. All the contestants stayed in the same hotel, so we got to become a little bit of friends. We would either go out to dinner together or have some drinks at the hotel bar and just chat. We were from all across the country, all different types of people. I got to meet some really cool people,” he said.

Speas said he would do it again without question, though he would prefer to be on something like “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

“If I was smart enough, I’d like to be on “Jeopardy.” “Jeopardy” is probably the pinnacle for any trivia nerd. But you know, for me  I’d like the chance to make more money, like with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and go for the big bucks,” Speas said.

Speas said overall the experience was great. He got flown out to Ireland where the show was filmed, put up in a hotel and got to meet host Rob Lowe. It was essentially a free vacation to Ireland, he said.

Speas has worked for the City of LaGrange for five years. He currently works as Creative Director at the Communications and Marketing department of the city, where he runs different programs, including LaGrange 101 and the LaGrange Youth Council among others. He said he’s currently helping lead a redesign of the city’ website that they are hoping to roll out next year.

“Besides that, I help create videos for the city for whatever needs we have, whether it’s internal or external communications, and help with our TV station, LGTV,” Speas said.