UK Quizbowl is pleased to announce the schedule for the first half of the 2019 season, featuring many different events through October and November. Three of these, Early Autumn Tournament in Oxford and Glasgow, ACF Fall, and the British Novice Tournament in London and Glasgow, are ideal for new players to get started playing quizbowl, either from new university societies or more established societies. There will also be tournaments suited to more experienced teams, or for teams who want to try their hand at the next difficulty level up. Links to Facebook events, where more detailed information will be posted, will be added to this post as they become available.
Student mirrors of the Early Autumn Tournament set will be held on Saturday, 19th October, and should be an enjoyable way to ease back into quizbowl after the summer break, or a fun way to get started if you’re new to quizbowl. The Oxford Brookes venue is open to teams of current students from any UK university, while the Glasgow venue is open to all teams with preference given to students and recent graduates.
On Saturday, 26th October, Penn Bowl will be hosted by Cambridge. It is a mirror of the recurring and popular Penn Bowl set produced by the University of Pennsylvania. This tournament is expected to be a few notches more difficult than the EAT set, and as such is recommended to more experienced players — but if you’ve caught the quizbowl bug from our Discord practices or previous tournaments, you’re more than welcome to come along and try your luck! This tournament will be open to non-student teams, but priority will be given to student teams if more teams than the field cap of 12 apply to enter.
This tournament will be followed by three “side events” — in this particular instance the challenging science tournaments Lederberg 3 and CANONEXPANSION, and a film tournament Reel Knowledge, to be held on Sunday, 27th October; whilst the former two are recommended to be played by science specialists, all are welcome. UKQB are hoping to liaise with the host club with a view to arranging some sofas or floors to sleep on for student players looking to save money on accommodation and attend these events after Penn Bowl — more details to follow.
ACF Fall will be hosted at Warwick University on Saturday, 2nd November. This is an annual highlight and is specifically intended for players new to quizbowl. Whilst the set is US-produced, it will be adapted for a British audience by a team of experienced players.
The following weekend, UK Quizbowl is hosting this year’s iteration of its British Novice Tournament at Imperial College, London and Glasgow University on November, 9th. This is entirely written by a large team of quizzers from all across the UK, led by head editors Joseph Krol and Alex Peplow. This set is restricted to new quizbowl players only, and the eligibility requirements will be posted in the forthcoming tournament announcement. Both this and ACF Fall are the best tournaments for new players to gain experience playing quizbowl against other, newer players.
If you have any queries, or wish to discuss specific events in more detail, please contact us via the UK Quizbowl Facebook page, our Twitter account, or via email at contact@quizbowl.co.uk.