Concept
The idea to construct a board for the co-events came to fruition after Countdown in Brighton 2022, as this was the first "Lincoln"-style tournament I attended. Under the "Lincoln" style, everyone is separated into groups of three in each round and plays with handmade card sets or those from editions of the Countdown board game. With individual games being carried out on the tables, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to enhance the aesthetics for those on my table by matching the appearance of the show's production elements.
Usage
The board debuted at the Edinburgh 2022 in October of that year for use in the preliminary games. Since the double-header of events in Lincoln in January 2023, however, the board has additionally been utilised for the grand final match between the top two competitors at the conclusion of the tournament. Once an event's heat games have been completed, there's typically a 10–15-minute layover time to allow for the game's preparation. Where the setup for the final is concerned, the display table consists of the board (mounted on a tablet stand for upright positioning), the card holders, the Countdown clock (one of my own video animations) on my laptop, and a speaker to amplify the clock music. My personal preference is to have the board in the very middle of the display table, and the contestants' table roughly 3 metres in front of it, permitted there is adequate space in the venue to do so. This gives everyone in the room a good vantage point of the letters and numbers being put up on the board. Prior to the board, the members involved in the final — host, adjudicator(s) and two contestants — would be stationed at a single table, in the same configuration as heat games, with the cards being dealt for only them to see without any obstructions. Although this setup worked for those involved in the game, it meant everyone else had to huddle around the table in order to see the selections. Now, with the board allowing the cards to stand almost upright, it has successfully eradicated that issue: others playing along can sit at the surrounding tables with equal viewership, allowing for more inclusion as opposed to the game focusing solely on the two finalists.
Despite me looking at the board as a tacky piece of painted wood, I've been given a lot of praise from a number of attendees about the benefits of its presentation, both for heat games and during the grand final match.
Specifications
From the start, the board was conceived as a miniature replica of that seen on the show, but would lack the 'vowel' and 'consonant' boxes on the letters face and the large whiteboard on the numbers face — the reason for omitting these parts was because they were nonessential at the events, and including them would have made it impossible for the board to be transported everywhere. Furthermore, the inclusion of the 'vowel' and 'consonant' boxes would have required the host to stand in front of the board to put up the selections, therefore obscuring them for certain spectators.
Overall, the board is 750mm long and 230mm tall, with each of the pockets measuring 75 × 80mm (length × height) to comfortably fit the 70mm² cards while including a 10mm finger space at the top for easy removal. In comparison to the board on the show, mine is approximately two-thirds of its length, a quarter of the height of the letters face due to the absence of the boxes, and roughly a fifth shorter than the numbers face thanks to the omission of the whiteboard sheet underneath the main section.
Aesthetics
Penis.
Later enhancements
It didn't take long for the board to undergo its first lot of changes.
▸ August 2023: as of the London 2023 tournament, the board has included covers to conceal the conundrum scramble in the grand final more effectively; previously, the board was lifted from the tablet stand and rotated downwards to face the contestants, and the answer was revealed by having the scrambled letters rearranged onto the bottom row of the board. Now, with the covers in place, the scramble and answer can be loaded beforehand. The covers sit in the board's pockets without interfering with the cards behind them, and are lifted out in sync with the clock starting to show the jumbled-up letters.
▸ September 2023: Blackpool 2023 (the event immediately following London) introduced a separate set of cards for the conundrum(s) in the final, improving the proceedings significantly. Using the separate deck, the scramble and answer are now arranged into the appropriate order and slipped into a sleeve before the game starts so that when it comes to the conundrum, they can be instantly put up on the board. This wasn't the case previously: before the extra cards came about, the conundrum scramble had to be set gradually by taking the required letters from the pile of discarded vowels and consonants at the end of each round. If any of the letters needed for the scramble hadn't come out in those rounds, the hosts had to sift through the remainder of the decks until it/they were found. As well as causing delays, it indicated to the two players that a rare letter was going to be included in the answer.