US Open heads to Winter Park for 2026 axe throwing showdown

The 2026 US Open will be more than a stop on the calendar. With direct bids to the World Axe and Knife Throwing Championship and Circuit Points at stake, Winter Park is about to host one of the clearest early markers of the season’s pecking order. The World Axe Throwing League and World Knife Throwing League set the event for Sept. 18-20 at The Axe Trap, 2600 Lee Rd, in a double-elimination format backed by certified judges on every lane.

The venue switch matters because the US Open has long carried outsized weight in the sport. WATL says the tournament was historically its second-largest event from 2018 through 2022, and the pressure around entry was so strong that registration eventually moved from first-come, first-served to a lottery system. Moving the 2026 edition to Winter Park, a travel-friendly market with an active local axe throwing scene, gives the bracket a fresh setting without shrinking the stakes.

That setting also comes with standards that competitors will notice immediately. WATL’s lane guidelines call for two targets per lane, safety containment, a 12-foot minimum ceiling height, a 12-foot minimum lane width and a 15-foot minimum lane length. That kind of consistency can shape a tournament weekend as much as the draw itself, especially when elite throwers are chasing the kind of finish that can turn one event into a championship path. WATL says the top eight finishers will earn direct bids to the World Axe and Knife Throwing Championship.

Planning for that chase starts now. WATL says registration details, pricing, the bracket schedule, the player portal and additional event information will be released before the end of June 2026. Under its championship path, most bids are awarded through direct league performance, Circuit Points and qualifying throws, and only a competitor’s top-performing league counts for global leaderboard and Circuit Points purposes. For throwers juggling multiple sanctioned leagues, that makes every late-summer result matter.

The 2026 US Open also arrives with momentum behind it. WATL brought the event back in 2025 at Ox Indoor Axe Throwing in Billings, Montana, where it ran Sept. 11-14 at a facility the league described as one of the largest in the United States, with 12 lanes, hang-out space and a back patio with a fire pit. Across 2025, WATL says it added 23 affiliated venues, staged 44 tournament circuit events, logged 202,630 matches and 3,804,344 axes thrown, and now operates across 300-plus affiliated venues in 20 countries. In Winter Park, the US Open is set to become the first real competitive checkpoint of 2026.