While the occurrence rate of wide giant planets appears to increase with stellar mass at least up through the A-type regime, B-type stars have so far not been systematically studied in large scale surveys. It therefore remains unclear up to what stellar mass this occurrence trend continues. The B-star Exoplanet Abundance Study (BEAST) is a direct imaging survey with the Extreme Adaptive Optics instrument SPHERE, targeting 85 B-type stars in the young Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco-Cen) region with the aim of detecting giant planets at wide separations and constraining their occurrence rate and physical properties. The statistical outcome of the survey will help determining if and where an upper stellar mass limit for planet formation occurs. Here, we describe the selection and characterization of the BEAST target sample.