The East Coast’s largest indoor archery tournament, the Lancaster Archery Classic, is scheduled for Jan. 23-26, 2020, at the Spooky Nook Sports Complex in Manheim, Pennsylvania. More than 1,700 archers from all over the world are expected to compete for $300,000-plus in cash and prizes, including over $160,000 in cash payouts, contingencies and over $20,000 in door prizes. The top prize will be a $20,000 payout to the Open Pro division champion. 

Increased Payouts

The 2020 prize money includes a hefty increase in total payouts for all the Recurve divisions combined. The $51,450 that will be awarded to Recurve archers could be the world’s largest recurve payout for an indoor archery tournament. Winners in the Men’s Recurve and Men’s Barebow divisions will take home $8,000 each, which is up from $6,000 last year. The Women’s Recurve champ will win $4,000 — up from $3,000.

In response to overwhelming demand, a new division at the Classic for 2020 is Women’s Barebow Recurve. The new division will pay $2,000 for first place, $1,000 for second, $500 for third and $250 for fourth. Just like in the Men’s Barebow division, the top three finishers in the Women’s Barebow competition also will receive custom Lancaster Archery Classic Barebow trophies – an additional award for the Classic’s most-watched competitors. (FYI: The 2019 Lancaster Archery Classic Barebow Finals video on YouTube has been viewed nearly 175,000 times between late January and mid-October 2019. That’s over three times more views than any other division finals. Click here to check it out.)

Also new for the 2020 Classic, there will be “Missed-Cut Payout Flights.” All of these awards will be paid in Lancaster Archery Supply gift cards, and they will be paid based on scores and rankings at the end of the qualification rounds. Archers scoring below the cutoffs for their respective divisions, which would have enabled them to advance to the elimination rounds, will be put into flights for these Missed-Cut awards. The top three archers in each flight will receive gift cards. 

The flighted payouts will be as follows:

• Open Pro: for places 65-67 - $350.
• Women’s Pro and Masters Pro: for places 17-19 - $250.
• Men’s Open: for places 65-67 - $150; 96-98 - $100; for places 128-130, 160-162 and 192-194 - $75.
• Men’s Barebow: for places 65-67 - $150; for places 96-98 - $100; for places 128-130 and 160-162 - $75.
• For Masters Open, Women’s Open, Youth Open, Bowhunter and Men’s Recurve: for places 33-35 - $150; for places 65-67 - $75.
• For the six other divisions with cuts to 16th place: places 17-19 - $150.

 An important note about cuts: The 2020 Classic marks the first time no division will cut to less than 16. While there had been some divisions in the past that sent only eight archers to elimination rounds, for the 2020 tournament, division cuts will be 16, 32 or 64 archers.

Focus on Youth Archers

The past two Lancaster Archery Classics have included a special tournament-within-the-tournament, so to speak, for youth archers. It was a special, 1-day competition for kids under 21. That afforded the opportunity to experience a world-class tournament, but for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time commitment.

For 2020, that competition is being expanded to include collegiate archers. The Easton Youth and Collegiate Trophy Tournament will feature the following divisions: Bowman, for ages 12 and under; Cub, for ages 13 and 14; Cadet, for ages 15-17; Junior, for ages 18-20; and Collegiate, for college students with the proper eligibility.

The Easton Youth and Collegiate Trophy Tournament will consist of a 60-arrow round shot from the standard 18 meters at 40cm target faces. There will be no elimination rounds, with trophies going to each division’s first-place finisher, and medals being awarded to the top three archers in each division. Each age class will feature separate competition divisions for Open, Recurve and Barebow archers in both male and female classes.

The tournament will begin at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25. Archers who compete in this competition can also shoot in the Classic, if they want. To accommodate the new Collegiate division, space for the Trophy Tournament has been expanded to allow for 540 competitors.

Lancaster Archery Classic Growth

To accommodate the Classic’s growing competition base, a new qualification line is being added for the 2020 event. In addition to the three Friday lines, which begin at 8 a.m., noon and 4 p.m., archers also can choose to shoot in a 4 p.m. line on Thursday, Jan. 23. With extra archers expected to compete, of course, the practice facility has been expanded as well. While there were 90 practice lanes available on site this year, there will 136 lanes available in 2020.

Aside from these new features added to the 2020 Classic, archers can still count on one of the best competition formats for indoor archery. This is not a tournament that requires perfection. All you have to do is shoot well enough in the 60-arrow qualifying round to make the cut to advance to eliminations. In that part of the competition, you’ll shoot a 12-arrow, head-to-head match against another qualifier. Win and you advance.

If you can win enough matches to make it past the finals cut-off for your division, you can shoot your way to victory. For example, let’s say you finish the qualification round and elimination matches ranked eighth in your division. And let’s say that division takes the top eight archers for the finals shoot ups.

As the No. 8 archer, you would start the finals by shooting a head-to-head match against the No. 7 archer. The winner of that match takes on the No. 6 archer. This process continues until someone shoots a match against the No. 1 archer for the division championship title, lots of cash and a well-deserved place in LAS Classic history. So in a division that advances 64 archers to elimination matches, it is entirely possible for the archer that shot the 64th best qualification score to win his or her division.

When archers are shooting qualification rounds, they are shoulder to shoulder with the best professional archers in the world. Archers and archery fans can meet a selection of the top pros and Olympians for photos and autographs during a “meet and greet” event scheduled for Saturday. And Classic sponsoring equipment manufacturers will have over 40 booths set up to display the latest and greatest target archery gear.

The link to online registration: https://www.lancasterarchery.com/lancaster-archery-classic