This is the Tournament Portal for our 2026 Spring West Tournament, which will be held in Sofia on February 7th-8th.

Registration

Registration for the tournament opens on January 7th and closes on January 21st.

Participants should complete all the necessary documents and upload them to their Team folder by the 21st of January. Please, don’t wait until the last moment. 

Transfer your registration fees, 17.90 EUR (35 BGN) per student, to the BEST bank account mentioning the school’s name and town in the “основание” between January 15th and 21st 2026.

All payments must be made in EUR. 

Please, carefully follow all instructions regarding registration as described in the registration email, sent to all coaches on 7.01.2026.

Logistics

Tournament Dates: 7-8 February 2026

Registration Opens: January 7, 2026

Registration Closes: January 21, 2026

Number of contestants: by January 14, 2026

Number of student participants confirmation by BEST team: January 15, 2026

Fee payment: January 15 - 21, 2026

Host Site

The tournament will take place at 51st Secondary School “Elisaveta Bagryana” in Sofia.

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 30 EUR (58.67 BGN) per student per night. This does not apply for single rooms. 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 EUR.

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, fluent in Bulgarian, and not high school students.

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. 

Please, keep in mind the distance between the tournament site and the different stations:

Route from the train station to the school

Route from the bus station to the school

Public transport from the bus/train station to the school (weekday)

Public transport from the bus/train station to the school (Saturday)

Public transport from the school to the bus/train station (Sunday)

If needed you can use taxi as the Sofia taxi’s prices are max 4 to 4.60 EUR (8 to 9 BGN), only if you travel to more distant destination:

Taxi Numbers:

OK Supertrans:
Telephone number - 029732121

Yellow! Taxi:
Telephone number - 0291119
App (Android)
App (IOS)
Book online

OK Taxi:
App (Android)
App (IOS)


TaxiMe:
App (Android)
App (IOS)


Green Taxi:
Telephone number - 02810810


For any information or concerns regarding transport in Sofia, contact info@bestfoundation.bg

Judging 

We welcome all high school students (only if they are 18 years old or above), 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

To Be Announced