Southend Easter Chess Festival 2026 – end of an era

The College where we play have notified a massive increase in the cost of hiring the college for the period of the Festival. This takes the cost well beyond our means, so we will not be able to continue at this venue.

Southend Chess Club, who inaugurated the Congress in 1957 and ran it until 2014 – the year that the Congress relocated from the Civic Centre when that became unavailable – spent some time exploring alternative venues before they found the College. We have local people in our organising committee so we already know that there are no other suitable venues in Southend, none having appeared in the intervening time since 2014.

We have reluctantly reached the conclusion that there will be no Southend Easter Chess Festival in 2026.

2027 is an unwritten book, so there may be an Easter Chess Festival at another location in the future, not necessarily in Southend.

The organisers in Giant Chess are all in our 70s and will take this point as the time to retire. It has been our pleasure to organise the Southend Easter Chess Festival these past 10 years and we thank the players who have entered, many returning year after year, who helped to make this annual event such a vibrant and special occasion; competitive chess among friends. We thank our Chief Arbiter, Adam Raoof, for his special brand of controlling a chess tournament which contributed greatly to creating the atmosphere in which it was a pleasure to play; also thanks to Adam’s many assistant Arbiters for their invaluable service. Finally, many thanks to yElena Went for her special catering, keeping us all so well fed.

Giant Chess
Ian Hunnable
John Chapman
Norman Went
with yElena Went (catering)