Spring 2026 Tournament Announcements

A new year begins, bringing a whole host of tournaments to the UK Quizbowl circuit. This term sees calendar staples such as ACF Regionals and COOT, new tournaments including HISTONE and the largest student Quizbowl tournament regularly held in the UK, the British Student Quiz Championships (BSQC). It’s shaping up to be an exciting term, with tournaments taking place up and down the UK; from Edinburgh to Southampton.

X, formerly known as TiTA (10th January, Cambridge)

Beginning the Spring term, we have X, whose closed mirror rounded off the previous term. The closed mirror’s final consisted of an Imperial derby, won by Imperial A. The open mirror of this pop culture tournament will be held in Cambridge.

CREEK II (24th January, Durham/Southampton)

A fortnight after the X open, there will be a closed mirror of CREEK II across two sites, one in Durham and the other in Southampton. This 1.5 dot tournament is intended to be similar in style but slightly more difficult than CREEK+, a set which was mirrored in the UK at Sheffield in 2023.

ACF Regionals (31st January, Imperial College London)

Then a week after CREEK II, the 3 dot tournament ACF Regionals returns to Imperial College London, where it has been held since 2023. Will Oxford, the previous mirror’s winners, defend their title for a second year?

Winter Novice (7th February, Edinburgh/Warwick)

Into February, we have Winter Novice, a 1 dot tournament taking place across Edinburgh and Warwick. This tournament will be Briticised, meaning some questions will be made more accessible for UK players.

BSQC Qualifiers (10th-18th February, Online)

BSQC Qualifiers will take place online across a week-long period, with teams being read 60 bonus sets as well as 5 tiebreakers, should they be on an equal score as another team.

As a result of tournament wins last year, Cambridge A, Oxford A, LSE A, Imperial A and Cambridge B have already qualified for BSQC. However, unlike last year, they will be required to sit the qualifier for seeding purposes. Those 5 teams will still qualify regardless of their score.

After that, the top 15 teams will qualify for BSQC and the remaining 4 slots will be decided by wildcard application. No more than four teams from a single institution may play the qualifiers.

COOT (21st February, Cambridge)

The 3 dot open COOT returns for its 5th year with this iteration being held at Cambridge. COOT succeeded the Oxford Open and Cambridge Open tournaments held at their title universities since 2012 and 2017 respectively.

ARCADIA (28th February, Birmingham)

ARCADIA rounds off February. This time, the 2 dot tournament will take place in Birmingham. This marks the fifth mirror of an ARCADIA set in the UK, and the third to take place in-person after the 2021 and 2022 mirrors took place online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

BSQC (7th March, Imperial College London)

Beginning March we have BSQC, the largest student Quizbowl tournament in the UK at Imperial College London. BSQC sees 24 teams compete to be crowned the British Student Quiz Champions. The previous year’s winners, Cambridge A, have already qualified and are looking to defend their title for the third year running.

WaShBowl III (14th March, Warwick)

Following BSQC, we have our second pop culture tournament of the term, WaShBowl III at Warwick. As the name suggests, this is the third iteration of the tournament which began as a collaboration between students from the universities of Warwick and Sheffield and expanded its writing team for the II and III editions.

HISTONE (21st March, Manchester)

The final tournament of the Spring term announced so far is HISTONE, a 1.5 dot tournament taking place in Manchester. The tournament will be jointly run by Manchester and Sheffield and is a brand-new set on both the UK and US Quizbowl scene.

HISTONE takes us right up to the Easter holidays, at which point a well-earned rest is in order. With 10 tournaments taking place over the next 3 months, the Spring term looks set to be another jam packed season in the UK Quizbowl circuit!