This is the Tournament Portal for our 2025 Fall West Tournament which will be held in Blagoevgrad on November 8th-9th.

Registration

Registration has closed.

Host Site

The tournament will take place in FLHS Lyudmil Stoyanov in Blagoevgrad.

Accommodations 

From this year, BEST Foundation will only arrange accommodation if requested. For detailed instructions, refer to the registration email.

BEST reserves up to two nights of accommodation for all participants. BEST commits to negotiating accommodation costs at or under 42 BGN (21.47 EUR) per student per night. Participants have to pay for their own accommodation costs while BEST covers the costs of all judges for up to one night in a hotel and up to one chaperone.

All payments must be made in BGN.

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 traveling 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. 

The school is close to both the train and the bus station and the most convenient way of getting there is by walking:

Route from the train station to the school
Route from the bus station to the school

If needed you can use taxi as the Blagoevgrad taxi’s prices are max 5-6 leva, only if you travel to more distant destination:

Taxi Numbers:

OK taxi- 073 88 21 21

Mega shans taxi- 073 88 22 22

Tip top taxi- 073 88 88 88

For any information or concerns regarding transport in Blagoevgrad, contact development@bestfoundation.bg

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).

Our Judge sign up form can be accessed by following 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 with tickets. We will provide food at the tournament site, and we will also cover one night of hotel accommodations for regional tournaments. 

Coaching

BEST Coaches should download our Coaches’ Checklist and make sure their teams are up to date.

Tournament Schedule

To Be Announced

Debate Motions

Varsity

Prepared motions:

This house would impose an exit tax on multinational corporations that relocate their production processes out of declining cities.

INFOSLIDE:

Declining cities are cities with significant decline in industrial activity as well as high rates of outward migration in the past 5 years. Production processes refer to the extraction, manufacturing and assembly processes to produce goods.

This house believes that the Serbian protest movement should form a political party.

INFOSLIDE:
Protests in Serbia emerged in 2023 following public anger over instances of infrastructure failure and allegations of government negligence. By March 2024, the movement had expanded to encompass broader grievances against President Aleksandar Vučić’s government. While the movement has largely maintained distance from established opposition parties, some factions later formed into electoral coalitions to contest elections.

This House would impose strict price controls on healthcare services and products (e.g. drugs, procedures, equipment).

Impromptu Hints:

Education

Relationships + Entertainment

Novice

Prepared Motions:

This house would make organ donation after death compulsory for all, with no exceptions ( including religion ).

This House Prefers that the Eastern block countries had formed their own Union instead of joining the European Union (EU)

INFOSLIDE:
In 2004, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia joined the European Union (EU), followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, and Croatia in 2013. For the purposes of this debate, the above countries are 'the Eastern bloc'. Serbia, Bosnia, and Northern Macedonia, along with other countries, are not currently part of the EU, but are aspiring to join the EU.

This house believes that we should ban gambling companies from sponsoring sport teams & leagues.

Impromptu Hints:

Relationships

Education