Welcome to the Lexington Winter Invitational 2026!

As we get closer to the tournament additional information will be posted here, and eventually in our Live Doc, but here are the highlights!

In order to provide the best tournament service and reduce your team's need to travel across Lexington, ALL OF PF, LD, AND POLICY will be held at Lexington High School again this year.

To allow us to get back to you as quickly as possible, PLEASE send all questions to BOTH sherylkaz@gmail.com AND debatejn@gmail.com!

1) NEW THIS YEAR: We are thrilled to add an online World Schools division, tabbed by Shane Stafford! We will accept school teams and hybrid teams in this division only.

2) We have secured a block of rooms at the Burlington Marriott (the same hotel as always). We still have an amazing rate at $162 (with free breakfast!)! The restaurant is still delicious.

This link will answer all (we hope!) of your questions:https://mi.bookmarriott.com/view/1287497

3) Adult Judges and coaches will be invited to dine in our judges’ lounge on Saturday and Sunday. Students (including student judges) will be able to purchase concessions items for breakfast (if they did not eat for free in the hotel or at home) and will be served free lunch at the tournament on Saturday and Sunday. The meals are provided by the school's food service; there will be a range of food choices available which will cover all dietary needs.

4) We will offer six prelims in all in person events -- Varsity Policy, Novice Policy Packet, Novice Policy Open, Varsity LD, Novice LD, Varsity PF, Novice PF -- and will break as many 4-2s as possible and will post more information as we have a better idea of numbers. Varsity LD, Novice PF, and Varsity PF will have their semifinal and final rounds on Monday and Novice LD is likely to have a final round on Monday. We will offer the Monday rounds as a hybrid opportunity for schools that need to get home on Sunday night. We vote yes on ending Sunday at a reasonable time. A World Schools schedule will be posted soon.

4.25) We define a novice as a high school student in their first year of high school competition. Students with extensive middle school experience should debate in Varsity. Coaches should send an email prior to the start of the tournament to include such students in the U50 breakout rounds.

4.5) We continue to have a TOC Quarters bid in all of our Varsity events!

5) We will not offer hired judging in the varsity events until after we have the judge cushion every tournament needs to run well and even if we have extra judges, no school will be able to hire enough judges to fully cover their judging obligation in any Varsity event. We want your judges more than your cash, so please do your best to bring judges to cover your varsity entries.

6) We will absolutely have judges for hire in all Novice events. For novice, all juniors and seniors with at least 200 NSDA points are eligible to judge. We also welcome your student judges!

7) We will hold a U50 breakout in all three Varsity divisions this year for entries that have debated fewer than 50 rounds prior to attending this tournament, since we will not be holding separate JV divisions. That is NEW THIS YEAR for PF and LD! Please send us an email in advance if you have entries that meet this criterion in the Varsity divisions

8) We will use “Six Category” Mutually Preferred judging in Varsity LD and Varsity Policy and Judge Strikes in Varsity PF.

Looking forward to seeing you in Lexington in January!

Kaz, Janet, and the Lexington Debate Family