The annual Times Crossword Championship is back for 2025. Established in 1970, this year’s event will take place on Saturday, October 11 at The News Building, London.
Competitors will have to solve three Times cryptic crosswords within an hour, with the top 50 per cent going through to the semi-final in the afternoon. The five solvers with the best times in the semi-final will go on to the grand final, where they will compete to solve a single Times crossword as quickly as possible.
Key Details:
- Time: Doors open at 10.45am for registration and breakfast. The first heat will start at 11.30am. Contestants who make it successfully through the heat will take part in afternoon sessions too. The event will end no later than 5.30pm.
- Ticket Price: £45 including all materials, breakfast, refreshments and a sandwich lunch.
- Prizes: £1000 for first place and the Times Crossword Championship trophy; £500 for second place; £250 for third place; £200 plus the Richard Rogan trophy for the highest-ranking first-time competitor.
Top 50 finishers in the 2024 competition have been sent a link for priority booking. Tickets will be released for general sale on Tuesday, August 12th.
I will most likely be an absentee this year – the date clashes with my daughter (who will have just turned 16) doing a charity skydive, so will be there instead, watching from behind an imaginary sofa.
I’m in 😃
Has there been an email John? I finished top 25 last year so assume I’ll have a limited period to take up a guaranteed place.
my email was in my Spam folder
Aha, thanks Sue, just found it in mine. Hope to see you there!
Sadly I won’t be there this year as my arthritis in my knees has reached the point where I can’t walk much of a distance or sit at a table for a long time without being in pain. I’m seeing a consultant next week and hope that I will be able to attend in 2026
Yes I got one and have already signed up.
I enjoyed my first outing last year, but cannot make the trip from Australia this time round
Lightweight!
Let me know if any Australia-based crossword competitions arise.
is there a copy of the crossword from the final available to view?
I felt yr pain
Hot on the heels of the Telegraph celebrating a hundred years of their crossword yesterday . No radical changes to the format or sideshows. I shall wonder through in relative obscurity as ever as I attempt potentially 9 x 225 grids which happens to produce 2025 squares though many a blank in this bluntly equilateral of years.
Thanks John. I aim to be there but will have to wait for the general sale ticket option.
Is there a link somewhere for general sales? The printed version of today’s crossword has a comment beneath it promising further information, but takes me only to this page.
Seems to be a problem. Online entry supposed to be open from 9:00 but I just get this message:
“General admission tickets for the Times Crossword Championship will go on sale on Tuesday 12th August, please revisit the site then”
Update: all sorted when I got back online at 12:00
“Revisit the site” – sorry, which site? In previous years I have always entered by filling in a form in the newspaper, but this year there’s no information about how to do this.
Has it become an exclusive online members-only competition?
Thanks
You can buy tickets using the form available at this link. Click the “Buy Tickets” button to get to it.
I’m not sure, the link is
https://times-event.com/crossword-championship-2025/
good luck
@CentralLine. Ha ha. Our responses crossed. As for “online only”, I’ve checked the print edition of today’s paper and it does appear that registration is online only
Thanks all, I’m in now!
For some reason Googling the web address given in the paper took me here rather than to the registration page, but clicking on a proper link got me to the right place.
I seem to remember that last year a discount on entry was offered for Times subscribers. Does anyone know whether this is still the case and if so how one goes about obtaining the relevant code. Thanks in advance.
From my invite email…. “Times subscribers are eligible for a 20% discount, please email puzzles@thetimes.co.uk with the subject line ‘TCC code’ to receive the discount code.”
Excellent. Thank you John.
Having parted with the filthy lucre I will be attending . I’m wondering whether there will some interest from Times Radio, who do whatever there thing is, just down the way on the same floor . They noticeable by their absence. I’m beginning to feel that I am part of a ‘tribe’ that is so niche that it shares it’s rules with the Fight Club or MI23. I have to speak of it with friends and family with utmost irony , where the conversation becomes an exercise in mutual pity for entirely different reasons on both sides. Fortunately there is a third side i.e. the funny one.
Hi Alan. Keen to know if I came last…!? Did you check my position in the table. How did you do?
Hi Steve you came 97th I came 47th in the semi with quite a few adrift see email for scan