2026 ACF Regionals
Last updated: September 24, 2025
ACF Regionals is a difficult tournament that serves as a qualifier for ACF Nationals. ACF Regionals prepares teams to ramp up to Nationals difficulty while still providing a rigorous qualifying experience. Many players will find ACF Regionals to be a significant but rewarding challenge.
Table of Contents ¶ ↑
2026 ACF Regionals ¶ ↑
2026 ACF Regionals will be held on January 31, 2026.
Editors ¶ ↑
2026 ACF Regionals is head edited by Erik Christensen. The subject breakdown by editor is:
| Editor | Subjects |
|---|---|
| Allan Lee | Biology, Chemistry |
| Claire Jones | European History, “Other” History |
| Daniel Ma | World History |
| Eva Wang | Visual Fine Arts |
| Forrest Weintraub | Auditory Fine Arts, Other Fine Arts (Auditory) |
| Geoffrey Chen | Physics, Other Science |
| Jay Kim | British Literature |
| Jim Fan | World Literature, European Literature |
| Kevin Thomas | Religion, Myth, Current Events |
| Noah Sheidlower | American History, Social Science |
| Tim Morrison | American Literature, Other Fine Arts (Visual), Other Academic |
| Erik Christensen | Philosophy, Geography, Pop Culture |
Hosting ¶ ↑
If you are interested in hosting a mirror of ACF Winter, fill out the hosting bid form before 11:59 p.m. PT on Saturday, November 15, 2025. Mirrors of this tournament may be held in-person or online. If you have any questions about hosting, please email ACF’s Site Coordinator at hosting@acf-quizbowl.com. Hosts must abide by ACF’s Hosting Guidelines.
Registration ¶ ↑
Registration will open after host bids have been adjudicated. The registration form will be available here.
Distribution ¶ ↑
ACF Regionals uses the standard ACF distribution.
Fees ¶ ↑
| Type | Team Amount | Host Share | ACF Share | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Fee
|
Base | $150 | $80 | $70 |
| Opt-out | $75 | N/A | $75 | |
|
Discounts |
New to quizbowl | −$100 | −$30 | −$70 |
| Shorthanded (1–2 players) |
−$75 | −$45 | −$30 | |
| Travel | −$10 per 200 miles traveled one-way | −$10 per 200 miles traveled one-way | N/A | |
| Buzzer(s) | −$10 per buzzer | −$10 per buzzer | N/A | |
| Staffer(s) | −$25 per staffer | −$25 per staffer | N/A | |
| Fee / Discount | Packet submission | -$75 to +$75 | N/A | -$75 to +$75 |
The new to quizbowl discount is for schools that have not sent a team to any regular collegiate academic tournament since September 1, 2024, and have no one on the team(s) claiming this discount who played those tournaments for another school. Exclusively novice tournaments do not count as regular collegiate academic tournaments.
Host sites will bill teams as soon as possible after the teams register. Teams should pay their host sites by whatever method is convenient for the hosts, who will in turn pay ACF by check, cash, or PayPal.
The minimum fee is $0 per team.
Packet Submission ¶ ↑
Any team with at least two people on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament* (either as a college student or high school student) prior to September 1st, 2024, is required to either (a) submit a half-packet, or (b) pay an opt-out fee. ACF is using an opt-out fee to reduce the number of late submissions received. High school teams attending a high school-only mirror are exempt from this requirement.
Note
For these purposes, all ACF tournaments, NAQT SCT (Division I or Division II), NAQT ICT, and typical college-level academic invitationals count as regular collegiate academic quizbowl tournaments. Pop culture or “hybrid” tournaments, HCASC, and tournaments played on NAQT’s Collegiate Novice series sets do not.
Please email regionals@acf-quizbowl.com if you are unsure whether your team is required to submit a half-packet. A team that is not required to submit a packet may submit an optional half-packet by the ±0 deadline for a $50 discount.
If a team wishes to outsource part of its packet to a player not expected to play on that team (e.g., a student who has graduated), it must first receive approval from the head editors. Non-playing students are welcome and encouraged to help their newer club members write, but it’s useful to know the contributors for both credit and logistical reasons.
Submission Schedule ¶ ↑
| Submission Deadline | Packet Discount / Fee |
|---|---|
| October 31 | -$75 |
| November 14 | -$50 |
| November 29 | -$25 |
| December 12 | ±$0 |
| December 26 | +$25 |
| January 9 | +$50 |
| Afterwards / Opt-out | +$75 |
The opt-out fee is $50. If a team does not submit a half-packet by January 9, 2026 and is required to submit per the criteria above, they must instead pay the opt-out fee; submissions will not be accepted following this date.
Packet Distribution & Authorship ¶ ↑
If your team is going to submit a packet, whether required or not, email regionals@acf-quizbowl.com to request a distribution. The head editor(s) will respond with a half-packet or quarter-packet template specifying which categories you are assigned to write.
Your assigned packet may ask for questions from more specific categories within the distribution. For instance, instead of being assigned an “American Literature” tossup, you might be asked to write a question on 20th-century American poetry, or an Economics bonus instead of “Social Science/Philosophy.”
Before writing, please review ACF’s packet submission guidelines and stick to the format provided. Questions should be written in 10 pt Times New Roman with one-inch margins. Although you may submit longer questions, tossups will be capped at 7 lines for the tournament. Each bonus part should be a maximum of 3 lines in length, with the majority being 1 or 2 lines long. Teams may be asked to edit submissions, which may lead to them missing deadlines, if multiple questions are much too short or much too long.
When finished, submit your packet by emailing it to regionals@acf-quizbowl.com.
- Please format the packet as a
.docxor.docbefore sending it. - The email subject line should list the name of the school, the team number (if applicable), and the word “half-packet” or “quarter packet.”
- To to meet a given deadline, the finished packet must be sent to that email before 11:59 Pacific Time on the corresponding listed day.
If multiple teams from one school are submitting packets, they should NOT be aware of each others’ questions. Any roster changes that entail an author for one packet playing for another (e.g., if a player on Team B moves to Team A) should be flagged to the TD and to regionals@acf-quizbowl.com.
Tips & Guidelines ¶ ↑
- A majority of your tossup answers should conceivably be a tossup answer at ACF Fall.
- Tossup answerlines should generally emphasize playability over creativity; aim for creative and interesting clues with straightforward answerlines. Especially if you are submitting for one of the later deadlines, the frequency of topic clashes means that broad common-link questions are unlikely to be used.
- When writing bonuses, aim for the easy parts to have 90% conversion, medium parts to have 50% conversion, and hard parts to have 10% conversion.
More information can be found in ACF’s packet submission guidelines.
Eligibility ¶ ↑
For information on who is eligible to play non-Fall ACF tournaments, see ACF’s official eligibility rules.
Mirrors ¶ ↑
Mirrors will by default be regional. ACF reserves the right to move teams and staffers between sites. ACF intends to mirror 2026 ACF Regionals in the following regions:
| Region | Site |
|---|---|
| Northeast | TBA |
| Upper Mid-Atlantic | TBA |
| Upstate New York | TBA |
| Lower Mid-Atlantic | TBA |
| Southeast | TBA |
| Florida | TBA |
| Great Lakes | TBA |
| Midwest | TBA |
| North | TBA |
| South Central | TBA |
| Pacific Northwest / Mountain West | TBA |
| Northern California | TBA |
| Eastern Canada | TBA |
| United Kingdom | TBA |
| Overflow (Online) | TBA |
Past Tournaments ¶ ↑
Sample questions from previous iterations of ACF Regionals are on the Collegiate Quizbowl Packet Archive.
Announcements and information about previous iterations of ACF Regionals are archived below: