The two-week winter vacation surrounding New Year's Eve is great news for kids and a little extra work for parents. The idea of giving your brain a break from school might not be the healthiest way to spend this time.

To get kids out of the house and away from their televisions and video-game consoles, the people at artist-management company Any Sound are organizing a pub-quiz-style event called brainjack in Osaka and Nagoya.

The quizzes will take place inside large halls designed to resemble imaginary shopping streets, where people will be waiting with questions to be answered. Organizers are aiming the event at teenagers, but they maintain that questions will also be available for children that are younger than high-school age.

To motivate quiz takers beyond the sense of pride they get from using their noggins, there will be three secret prizes to choose from. To enter a lottery to win a prize, you will need to collect a certain number of stamps, depending on which prize you choose to go after. Visitors will have one hour to collect the stamps and complete the rally.

Other than the quizzes, there will also be mini-games and bonus-contests for other chances to enter the lottery.

Trivia quizzes can be fun, especially with friends. But this contest has the bonus of getting the kids away from their new Play Station Vita game console and shaking their brains out of holiday mode.

Brainjack takes place at Umeda AKASO in Osaka, on Dec. 29 (the contests will take place at 2 p.m. and again at 4:30). For more information, call (06) 7897-2454. The event also takes place at Space "D" at B Hall in Nagoya on Dec. 30 (from 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.). For more information, call (052) 265-2665. For both events, tickets cost ¥2,000 in advance and ¥2,500 at the door.