UK Open
The FA Cup of darts. An unseeded draw, made fresh after every round, so a qualifier from a Rileys club can be pulled out against the world number one.
6 to 8 March 2026
The next edition is not on the calendar we hold yet. It will appear on the schedule once the PDC confirms the dates.
Nothing else on the calendar works like this. The draw is open and random, and crucially it is redrawn after each round rather than fixed as a bracket at the start. Nobody has a path; everybody just finds out who they get next.
That is what makes the weekend at Minehead worth watching even in the early rounds. The romance of the amateur qualifier is real, and occasionally one of them goes a very long way.
The format
- An unseeded open draw, made again after every round.
- 160 players across eight stages, with lower-ranked players and qualifiers entering first.
- The top 32 on the Order of Merit do not enter until the fourth round, which is the point at which the qualifiers who have survived meet them.
How players qualify
- Order of Merit players enter in bands: 97 to 128 first, then 65 to 96, then 33 to 64, with the top 32 entering at round four.
- 16 places through Rileys amateur qualifiers held around the UK.
- Eight places from the Challenge Tour and eight from the Development Tour.
Past winners
The last 10 champions, most recent first.
Andrew Gilding winning in 2023, at 52 and ranked well outside the elite, is the tournament in one result.
How to watch
Shown live in the UK on ITV4. ITV4 is free to air, so it costs nothing to watch. The schedule page lists which broadcaster has each event.
Tickets
Sold by session through the PDC ticket shop. Butlin’s Minehead also sells accommodation packages for the weekend. There is more on outlets, the ballot and what to avoid on the darts tickets page.
The other majors
Also here: the world rankings, the full schedule, and a free scoreboard for your own game.
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