The oldest brass band contest on Earth meets the newest tipping league on Earth. Nineteen of the world’s best bands, one stage at Symphony Hall Birmingham, one test piece: Music of the Spheres by Philip Sparke. Your job is simple to say and near impossible to do: rank all nineteen, first to last.
New here? Welcome, it’s free, and it takes two minutes. Drag the bands into your predicted finishing order, drop in an email (never shown publicly) and an alias for the leaderboard, and you’re in. Full field or nothing, that is the game. The rules are four sentences of maths and zero lucky draws.
In the Bar is open now. Blind tips, locked the moment the first band takes the stage: 10.00am Saturday in Birmingham, 7.00pm Saturday on the Australian east coast. All times on this page show in your own time zone, so trust the clock you see.
In the Box opens at the first downbeat and stays open until the last band plays. Re-order your tips live as the day unfolds. For Australians that is an all-nighter, which is frankly in the spirit of the thing.
One quirk of the Open: no points are published, so there is no Split this time. Ties settle by countback, which means exact placements are gold. Handsome Tim will be at Symphony Hall in person, so tip him on the shoulder if you see him, and tip the bell before ten.
