Festivus
The quizbowl holiday of Festivus is a regular occurrence in the month of December (traditionally December 23rd) in which players gather for an informal reading of vanity packets of varying quality and duration and is inspired by the fictional holiday of Festivus from Seinfeld.
The Internet Charity Tournament run by Will Alston and Emily Gunter was inspired in format and conceit by Festivus. The 2012 Feats of Weakness and 2013 Feats of Weakness 2 by Auroni Gupta were similarly inspired.
Airing of Grievances
In Seinfeld, Festivus has two halves: Feats of Strength and the Airing of Grievances. Since roughly 2014, Quizbowl Festivus has eschewed the latter to focus on the "Feats of Strength" aspect of the holiday via the playing of packets. Unsurprisingly, the Airing of Grievances had a tendency to descend into heated arguments and sometime before the 2014 iteration of Festivus it was removed from the holiday docket.
Discord era
Since 2017, Festivus has been held on Discord; this has included both the main quizbowl Discord and separate purpose-created servers.
| Year | Forum post | Organizer | Packets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Festivus (Dec 23rd, 2017) | Eric Mukherjee | never posted in full |
| 2018 | Festivus (23 Dec) | Matt Mitchell | packets |
| 2019 | Festivus (23 Dec) | Thomas De Bock | packets |
| 2020 | 2020 Festivus [20 December 2020] | Emily Gunter | in progress |
IRC era
Before the advent of Discord, the #quizbowl IRC served as the primary location for various online quizbowl activities and Festivus was no exception. It is unclear exactly when the first informal Festivus event was held, but packets were being read on the date of Festivus since at least 2012, when Mike Bentley announced that they would be reading their part of This Tournament Has Eleven Thousand Writers. There is no record on the forums of any formal Festivus event occurring before 2014, though there is mention of the Airing of Grievances.
| Year | Forum post | Organizer | Packets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | IRC Festivus 2014: Quentin Tarantino Edition | Rob Carson | packets |
| 2015 | IRC Festivus 2015: Rex Ryan's Revenge | Rob Carson | packets |
| 2016 | IRC Festivus 2016: Still Not Dead Yet | Rob Carson | packets |