It’s happening! FIRST Tech Challenge Premier Events are creating a brand new way for teams to take their season to the next level with exciting event experiences around the world. Today we’re announcing global allocations for FIRST Premier Events and kicking off the official invitation process.

FIRST Premier Event Allocations

We now have Premier Event advancement numbers for each region. You can find your region’s Premier Event allocations on our Premier Events webpage. Teams can also view their region’s FIRST Championship allocations on our events site.

Teams have more opportunities to advance than ever before in FIRST Tech Challenge. This year we’ve continued to expand the FIRST Championship and added 32 teams for an event total of 256 teams. We’re also inviting 383 additional teams to advance to a FIRST Premier Event and another 95 FIRST Premier Event slots reserved by event hosts to invite teams directly.

At the conclusion of each Regional Championship event, advancing teams will be automatically invited to the FIRST Championship, these teams will also have the option of forfeiting their FIRST Championship spot and instead going to a FIRST Premier Event, passing their FIRST Championship slot to the next advancing team. About a week after the conclusion of the Regional Championship event, invites will be sent to the FIRST Premier Event advancing teams. The advancement order follows standard FIRST Tech Challenge advancement outlined in the Competition Manual, in Section 4 Advancement.

Invitations Start Monday

Teams who have already qualified for FIRST Tech Challenge Premier Events through a Regional Championship will begin receiving invitations on Monday! Invitations will be sent via email to the Lead Coach/Mentor 1 and 2 registered in the team dashboard account with a deadline and instructions to fill out a Microsoft Forms questionnaire with a ranked choice list of the team's preferred Premier Events. Teams should list only events they want to and are able to attend, in order of their preference.

After a team is assigned to their FIRST Premier Event, they will get a follow-up email notifying them of which event they got into and the contact information for their Premier Event Organizer. The full Premier Event invitation process is outlined on our Premier Event webpage. Please make sure to read the “Important things to consider”.