Sat, 21 Mar 2020, 10:00
Posted on Tue, 25 Feb 2020, 12:00
POSTPONED until September
Come and celebrate our magnificent SEVEN anniversary day with us on 21st March 2020!
This is our annual BIG comp day, with top class route setting this year from Rob Napier, Holly Duce & the BB Team, exciting prizes, tasty food and drink, live DJ and more.
The event will be a celebration of everything we love about climbing. It's about friendly competition, pushing yourself to climb at your best, sharing it all with friends, and most of all having fun. The day is based around three parallel climbing competitions - the Open Comp, the Fun Comp and the U16 Comp. Whether you're a seasoned competitor, or just enjoy your climbing and want to make a day of it, there's something here for you.
The top competitors will battle it out for a tasty £1000 cash prize pot, with £250 on offer for the winner of the Men's and Women's Open events, and cash prizes for the top three finishers in each event.
Men's Open | Women's Open | |
---|---|---|
1st place | £250 | £250 |
2nd place | £150 | £150 |
3rd place | £100 | £100 |
As well as a free BB t-shirt for every competitor, there will be loads of chances to come home a winner even if you're never going to make the finals, with loads of other prizes up for grabs with help from our generous sponsors.
In addition all entrants to the Fun and Open comps will get the chance to enter a random draw at the end of the night for one of SEVEN one-month unlimited climbing passes - meaning that even the lowest scoring climbers could go home with a prize. You have to be there in person to win it though, so make sure you stay until prize-giving at the end of the night to be in with a chance.
Time | |
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Centre opens | 9:00 |
Fun comp (morning session) & U16 comp | 10:00-13:00 |
Open comp | 14:00-18:00 |
Fun comp (afternoon session) | 15:00-18:00 |
Food, bar, and special challenges | 18:00-19:30 |
Free yoga class with Leo (included in comp entry, limited numbers, sign up on the day) | 18:00-19:00 |
Showcase Finals (Spectators welcome, no charge) | 19:30-21:00 |
Prizegiving | 21:00-21:15 |
Centre closes | 21:30 |
Expected timings for the day are set out in the table. These may change a bit but start times should stay the same! We'll have some fun stuff going on all day, particularly between the end of the competitions and the start of the Finals, including some exciting special challenges.
PLEASE NOTE that tickets must be booked in advance as it is likely that that the event will sell out (it did last year!).
Tickets | |
---|---|
General tickets | £15 |
BB Unlimited members | £5 |
Spectators for Finals @ 7.30pm | FREE |
All entries include a free comp t-shirt, while stocks last! First come, first served.
Any entrants who have not been to Boulder Brighton before will also need to register, which you can do in advance by following this link.
We think competitions should be great fun for everyone, not just those with a shot of winning (which, let's face it, most of us don't!). It's a good way to test your route-reading skills, as well as your general climbing ability. Come with a friend and see who comes out on top, or just come by yourself to see what you can do. If you're not sure if competitions are for you, read about the Fun Comp below and hopefully change your mind.
As well as the competitions, there will be various fun challenges going on, live DJs to keep everyone in the zone, delicious coffee from Small Batch - as well as our usual cakes and snacks at the cafe. A veritable festival of bouldering in fact. There will also be fantastic street food from the Vegan Earthlings - highly recommended!
The centre will be open to competitors and spectators all day (subject to special spectator guidelines), but closed to general climbing as we plan to use all the walls for the comp routes. We will be open again as normal from Sunday morning.
With setting from Rob Napier (BMC national competition route setter), Holly Duce, and the BB in-house setting team, there will be plenty of exciting and challenging problems to be had in the Open Comp. We expect to set 25 climbs, graded from Font 4A up to about 7B, to give even the strongest climbers something tricky to get their teeth into. Some problems will be set specifically for female competitors, and some will be shared with the men. Following the initial round of climbing, there will be a Showcase Final round for the best performing climbers - using our 17 metre comp wall for what it was intended!
If you enjoy climbing grade 5s and want a challenge, the Open Comp is the event for you.
Not everyone can climb 7B, but that's no reason not to be able to share in the fun of the comp. Our Fun Comp will be set at roughly grades 3A to 5C, so anyone who's happy climbing some grade 4s and maybe the odd grade 5 should have a great time. There will be various prizes to be had (not necessarily going to the winners!) to make things interesting, but the main thing is to have fun trying.
This year we will be running two sessions of the Fun Comp, one in the morning alongside the U16 event, and one in the afternoon alongside the Open event, so you can choose which time suits you best. The Open Comp has only one session, from 2pm-6pm.
The format is very low pressure: there will be 20 problems around the centre, and all entrants will get a tick sheet when they register covering these climbs. You then go around the problems like any of our other circuits, having a go at them in whatever order you fancy. There's no spotlight or pressure, it's just like coming for a normal climb on a circuit, except that you want to try and climb each problem in as few attempts as possible. You get 10 points if you get the climb first go, 7 points for a second attempt, 3 points for a third attempt, and 1 point if you get it at all.
As well as the climbing, there will be other stuff going on - climbing challenges, music DJs, slacklining - all very laid back. If you've never climbed in a climbing competition before, this is your chance! We aim to make the Fun Comp the friendliest comp around, so bring some friends and enjoy yourselves.
There will be an Under 16 comp running before the scheduled start of the Open Comp, and we encourage any aspiring young climbers to come and give the comp a go. Under 16s will have their own marked problems, though many problems will be shared with the rest of the competition - please note that most routes will be set for adults primarily, with routes not set specifically for juniors. To get the most out of the competition, youth climbers should already be comfortable climbing some of the Font 4s in the centre (mint and grey circuits or thereabouts). There will be 25 problems set.
As with our regular centre rules, any Under 16 competitors must be actively supervised by a registered adult boulderer, unless they have completed our Youth Boulderers' Award and been signed off as able to use the centre unsupervised.
We will be awarding separate prizes for the highest scoring Masters in the Open competition. Our Masters category is applicable to anyone born in 1979 or earlier (i.e. climbers who were aged 40 or over at the start of 2020). Any Open Comp finalists will be excluded from winning Masters prizes.
The top scoring competitors from the Male and Female Open comps will battle it out to see who gets the top spot at the end of the night. Make sure you stick around to watch some of the strongest climbers around show the rest of us how it's done. We always get a big crowd and a great atmosphere.
Open to anyone identifying as female or non-binary
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