This is the Tournament Portal for our 2022 Fall West Tournament which will be held in Blagoevgrad on November 11-13th.
Registration
Registration - Closed!
Host Site
The tournament will take place in Lyudmil Stoyanov FLHS in Blagoevgrad.
Accommodation
BEST reserves up to two nights of accommodation for all participants. BEST commits to negotiating accommodation costs at or under 35 BGN per student per night. Participants have to pay for their own accommodation costs while BEST covers the costs of all judges and up to one chaperone.
Hotels
Judges and Team Coaches will receive emails with their hotel allocation for the weekend. Please refrain from communicating with the hotels directly and contact BEST instead if you have questions or concerns.
Travel
All teams are required to bring a chaperone who will be legally responsible for their team’s safety when travelling to and competing at the venue. Chaperones are required to be aged 18 or over and to be fluent in Bulgarian.
Teams are encouraged to apply for a travel scholarship. Coaches can fill out the scholarship application form by clicking here. Teams allocated scholarships will be reimbursed after arriving at the tournament venue. Please read our scholarship terms and conditions for further information BEFORE applying for a scholarship.
Scholarship applications were closed on 28 October.
Press Releases
The pre-tournament English press release can be found here.
The pre-tournament Bulgarian press release can be found here.
Tournament Schedule
Please note that Oratory, Duo, and Poetry have been merged; Awards will be given to the top 3 novice performers in the merged categories based on preliminary round results
Saturday, Nov 12, 2022
08:45 - Team Check-in // Volunteer Training
09:15 - Judge Q+A // SL Meeting
10:00 - Opening Ceremony
11:00 - Round 1 Flight A: Oratory, Prose, and Duo
12:30 - Round 1 Flight B: Poetry and Debate (Prepared)
14:00 - Lunch
14:45 - Round 2 Flight A: Oratory, Prose, and Duo
15:30 - Reimbursement Teams Scholarships and Travel Chaperones (1 hour)
16:15 - Round 2 Flight B: Poetry and Impromptu Debate Motion Released (45 min. of prep)
18:30 - Round 3 Novice Prose
Semifinals Oratory, Varsity Prose, and Duo
19:45 - Round 3 Flight B: Poetry and Debate (Prepared)
Sunday, Nov 13, 2022
08:15 - Check in for Debaters
08:45 - Round 4: Impromptu Debate Motion Released (45 min. of prep)
09:30 - Semifinals: Poetry
09:30 - Reimbursement Judges (1 hour)
10:30 - Finals Flight A: Novice and Varsity Prose, Oratory, and Duo
11:30 - Finals Flight B: Poetry and Debate (Impromptu w/ 1 hour of prep)
14:30 - Closing Ceremony
15:30 - Departures
Judging
We welcome all high school graduates or above with C1 or higher English to judge at our tournaments. If you are new to BEST and our tournaments, visit our Judging Basics page!
Coaches, you must register if you are judging, too, and don’t forget to include your judges when you fill out your team roster spreadsheet (see below).
Judge Sign-Up form on this link.
We will reimburse all judges for their transport if they use trains or buses, but we strongly encourage taking the most affordable option when possible (usually trains). Please purchase your ticket back from the tournament location as well, as we cannot reimburse you without being presented tickets. We will provide food at the tournament site, and we will also cover one night of hotel accommodations for regional tournaments. In exceptional circumstances when a judge can’t make it to the tournament site before 11:00 AM on Saturday, we will cover two nights of hotel accommodation.
Coaching
BEST Coaches should download our Coaches’ Checklist and make sure their teams are up to date.
Debate Motions
Attention debaters! This tournament, we are piloting a new structure that we hope will lessen teams’ research burdens and encourage stronger, more competitive debating. Therefore, please note that the finals debate motion will be impromptu with teams having 1 hour of preparation time.
PREPARED MOTIONS:
This House regrets the automation of jobs previously performed by humans (e.g. self-checkouts, robotic manufacturing, self-driving cars).
This House believes that schools should actively seek to instill a strong sense of patriotism in their students.
IMPROMPTU HINTS:
Technological Innovation
Social
Privacy