We are excited to announce the competitions hosted at this year’s LockCon. There will be the usual lockpicking and impressioning competitions, as well as a return of the disc detainer picking competition. You can also test your safe manipulation skills, join the lever lockpicking competition by Nigel Tolley, and play multiple games by our friends from Foxpicks.

The smaller competitions will be open from Friday evening till Sunday. Each of these competitions reach their conclusion during the finals on Sunday. This can be either a 1:1 with the best pickers, or a first to open wins where the best are competing all at the same time.

Dutch Open Impressioning & Lockpicking

The two main competitions are impressioning and lockpicking, where each takes a whole afternoon. The main rules are found in the pdf below, but for this year’s event we like to share our competition planning as well.

The Impressioning competition will be a standard competition with a qualification round, and two finals of six people each. We want to reduce the luck factor in the competition. E.g. consistent opens are a better demonstration of skill than a single quick open. For this, we have split the qualifier into two. You will now have to open both Abus C83 locks within two 30 minute attempts. The finals are, as per usual, on Abus C83 as well. The locks and blanks are sponsored by Abus!

The lockpicking competition is a standard competition with a qualifier and a bracket of two and three people. The qualifier has six tables of at most ten people per table. This qualifier is five minutes per lock, and in total you will pick ten locks. The best three from each table continue to the bracket. The bracket is played in nine groups of 2, three group of 3, and a final with the last best three lockpickers. Each round of the bracket is 15 minutes per lock.

Further details are below.

Dutch Open Disc detainer picking

Also this year, we have a disc detainer competition. We have learned from the competition last year, and have updated the rules accordingly. We have chosen some great locks for you to pick. This year we have included the Discombobulator from Opsasec in both in front and rear tensioning models, but you can also use the Sparrows 2-in-1 disc detainer lockpick.

Lever lockpicking

Nigel Tolley hosts this year’s lever lockpicking competition. Try your hand at lever lock picking! Various lever locks from the UK will be attending LockCon, for your bafflement and amusement. Try picking a selection varying from 2 levers, uncurtained without anti-picks, up to 5 lever curtained with anti-picks, with various tools supplied. Nothing too hard, and everyone should get at least one open.

The winner of each round goes through to the final, there will likely be 5 rounds of 5 locks for 5 minutes. The final setting will be communicated so everyone is on the same page.

Timing will be like the cylinder picking, call out “open” when you’ve opened your lock. The locks will be modified to not open fully, so expect the bolt to remain sticking out a little when unlocked – but don’t worry, it’ll be obvious! Have fun. Please remember, ‘it’s about manipulation, not brute force.’

There aren’t many rules, but if you break a tool, you’re out!

Foxpick’s games

Foxpick will host two lockpicking games during LockCon. In Pic Tac Toe, you will play a head-to-head competition in a game of tic-tac-toe, but to move you’ll have to pick the locks. For the second game, Felix’s Breakout, it’s your goal to free Felix the Fox from jail! Both games are very exciting, and we hope you will enjoy them as well.

Foxpick will provide all the tools you need. This helps to keep it an even playing field for everyone. Further details of the game are explained before each player starts.

Safe manipulation

To celebrate the skill of safe manipulation, we have included it in this year’s competition list. We are working with S&G 6730, for which we ask you to find the combination. The locks spin true, and read very well, so don’t let this opportunity pass!