More than a year ago, we announced a slate of live tournaments that were set to take place all across North America, stretching from coast to coast. Then the pandemic hit, and we pivoted to hosting virtual Scrabble, welcoming hundreds of players from around the world to play with us online.

But beyond directing 12 virtual tournaments, we also used the past year to build the infrastructure we'd need to reimagine live events. We digitized results submission, automated the calculation and posting of standings in real time, developed a COVID vaccination policy, and published a Directors' Handbook and Players' Handbook to make our tournament guidelines transparent to everyone.

All of that work was in preparation for the announcement we're now ready to make today.

We're back!

Starting right now, we have six live, in-person Scrabble tournaments on the books, open for registration. We've been spending the last few weeks consulting with our directors, figuring out dates and venues, and solidifying our plans, and now, we're good to go. Without further ado, here are the events we have on the calendar:

Lincoln City, Oregon - Sept. 4-6, 2021 - We'll kick off the return to live tournaments with the Labor Day Oregon Coast Open (LOCO) tournament, a 3-day tournament held annually at a beach house on the Oregon coast.

Portland, Oregon - Oct. 16-17, 2021 - The fun continues with a 2-day tournament in Portland's cozy Alberta Arts District, one of the premier neighborhoods in America for food, drinks, and great local small businesses.

Charlottesville, Virginia - Nov. 13-14, 2021 - For the next tournament, we'll convene on the East Coast in the charming town of Charlottesville for Southern hospitality and cuisine at a welcoming and airy local venue.

Hood River, Oregon - Feb. 19-21, 2022 - Get ready for hot cocoa, a warm fire pit, and 20 games of Scrabble at the fourth annual Hood River Open, a tournament that historically has drawn one of the toughest fields in North America to a rustic log cabin for 3 days of fun.

Austin, Texas - April 2-3, 2022 - We're delighted to add Austin to the lineup and welcome new directors Becky Dyer and James Curley to introduce their city at a fabulous tournament venue in downtown Austin, one of the coolest cities in the country.

Saint Louis, Missouri - June 25-26, 2022 - Come down to the Wizard's Wagon, a local board game shop, for 2 days of games in the city that boasts spectacular barbecue and an amazingly fun museum of slides, complete with a precariously dangling rooftop bus.

To support these events, we're also introducing two new features today: CoCo Premium Memberships and the CoCo Play Store.

CoCo Premium Members receive a $15 discount off the entry fee at every CoCo tournament. Play in two tournaments a year, and the $30 annual premium membership pays for itself! Plus, the funds go toward helping the CoCo cover all the operating expenses that we need to cover behind the scenes.

And when you're ready to play, the CoCo Play Store is your new one-stop shop for tournament registration. Gone are the days when you needed to transfer money or mail a check to individual directors for every tournament you wanted to play. Now, you can register for tournaments through a simple, centralized portal that lets you register for multiple tournaments in one easy transaction. This new, integrated platform streamlines the registration process for all CoCo tournaments and frees directors from the burden of having to manage and track individual payments from players.

Lastly, we'd like to say: This list of new tournaments is just the beginning. We have six events on the calendar so far, but we're very, very interested in adding more. We're in talks with a few people who may well join the team within the next couple of months, but we remain on the lookout for additional people. If you're out there and thinking about getting involved as a tournament director, we would absolutely love to hear from you.

For now, these six tournaments are a start, and we're excited for all of them. We hope you'll consider signing up for one - or more! And to receive further updates when we add new tournaments, you can join our mailing list.

After more than a year at home, we're excited to get back to enjoying live Scrabble over the board again. We hope to see you at a CoCo tournament soon!