GAN Southern Championship 2026 brings regional title chase to Fort Worth

GAN Southern Championship 2026 opened Thursday in Fort Worth with the kind of scale that has become the new test for major U.S. championships. The meet at Will Rogers Memorial Center’s Round Up Inn, on the WCA page as an ongoing competition with live results, brought a regional title chase, a packed schedule and a capped field of 320 into one of the biggest rooms in Southern speedcubing.

Southern Cubing LLC handled the organization, and the setup around the event looked built for throughput as much as prestige. The WCA listing carried a full championship apparatus, with key information, venue details, travel and lodging, unofficial events, merchandise, sponsors and a Southern Cubing Community link. Registration had opened December 18, 2025 and closed May 31, 2026, with no on-the-spot entries allowed. Competitors paid the $80 base fee through Stripe to lock in a spot, while spectators were admitted free.

The championship also carried real regional weight. CubingUSA lists GAN Southern Championship 2026 as one of nine Regional Championships for 2026, part of a structure meant to deliver a high-quality, large-competition experience and recognize the top competitors in each U.S. region. Under that format, the regional title goes to the top-ranked competitor who lives in the region, which makes Fort Worth more than a standard open: it is the Southern title table, with local bragging rights tied directly to the bracket of results.

That framework was already familiar from 2025, when the Southern Championship ran in Natchitoches, Louisiana, drew 72 competitors and crowned Dylan Miller in 3x3x3 Cube with a 6.79 average. The jump from 72 to a 320-solver cap shows how quickly these championship weekends have grown into full-scale operations, where qualification, scheduling and round management matter as much as the podium.

WCA Live’s schedule for Fort Worth reflected that pressure. The weekend slate ran Thursday through Sunday and included 3x3x3 Multi-Blind Final and 3x3x3 Fewest Moves Final on Saturday, signaling that this was not just a 3x3 showcase but a broad championship program. The current records feed around the event added to the sense of pace, with fresh CRs and national records still rolling across blindfolded events, fewest moves, one-handed and clock. At Will Rogers Memorial Center, a 120-acre complex with more than 94,000 square feet of exhibit space and more than two million annual visitors, the Southern title chase sat exactly where modern championship speedcubing now lives: big venue, tight cap, live results and no wasted motion.