Pickleball English Open set for largest edition with 60 courts

The English Open is headed for its biggest edition yet, with Pickleball England planning a 60-court setup across three interconnected halls at NEC Birmingham. The six-day tournament runs August 11-16 and is targeting more than 3,000 player registrations and over 6,000 event registrations, a scale that puts amateur demand at the center of the story.

That jump is stark when measured against the event’s start. Pickleball England says the English Open launched in 2019 with 305 players and 694 registrations, then climbed to 2,350 players and 4,321 registrations in 2025. The 2026 field would push the tournament into another tier, with about 120 brackets split by age and skill, including 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5 and Open divisions, plus 70-plus age-only events.

For regular players, that kind of expansion changes the tournament experience in real ways. Bigger fields mean more entry points, more matches against players at a similar level, and less of the squeeze that comes when a big event tries to fit too many draws into too few courts. It also gives the English Open the kind of depth that turns a weekend stop into a true destination event, where players can chase medals while moving through a full festival-style schedule.

The venue choice matches the ambition. Pickleball England describes the NEC as the largest space in the United Kingdom, with 20 inter-connecting halls, rail, road and air links, on-site hotels, restaurants, a lake and walking trails. The contract also leaves room for future growth, another signal that the tournament’s organizers expect demand to keep climbing.

Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England’s chair and co-founder, called the move to the NEC a “landmark moment” for pickleball in England, saying the scale and flexibility will create a new experience for players, spectators and partners. Sarah Harvey of the NEC said the event is a welcome addition to the campus’s summer programme.

Pickleball England says the English Open remains the largest indoor pickleball tournament in the world and the largest outside the United States, with hopes of drawing players from more than 45 countries. After seven years of growth, the move to Birmingham makes one thing clear: amateur pickleball in England has outgrown club-size thinking and now needs venue-size infrastructure to match.