We have one annually. Jason Figliano organizes and hires a company to run it. He is on here and I will message him to post some info.

We do one every few months at our gym. We typically do "quartets" as we never had enough students to get at least 4 teams going (Good amount of matches)

1) See who shows up to compete and then assign groups based on size, skill, etc. If the instructors don't create the teams you may get a horrible balance.
2) Let the teams figure out the order that they want to fight, and quietly get that info so the other teams don't know. This creates some fun for the team to think strategically, but without getting an unfair advantage of re ordering their team based on their opponent's line up.
3) Don't forget to have a third place match. This means with a 4 team comp each team gets to compete twice. More mat time the better.
4) We eventually decided in circumstances where there is a 30 pound weight difference (or more) between opponents, the smaller opponent gets to decided if its a 3 minute or 5 minute match. This adds more strategy and fairness for lower belts. They may choose a longer time limit if the bigger opponent is tired, or maybe they pick a short time limit to survive and get a draw for elimination. We get some interest plays on the teams.

Thanks Rory, that's exactly the type of info I'm after :)

Ours turned out great. Everything was REALLY great except one unfortunate radially shattered humerus bone via a kimura. But it took quite a lot of energy and time from multiple people and that's why we haven't rerun it even though the experience was a positive one.

Check out the highlight: https://www.youtube.com/w[...]9s5xzN1k-Y

Highlight video was great, thank for sharing
Hopefully we avoid radial fractures O.o
I hadn't thought about assigning a camera person but I definitely will now

This one was filmed with smartphones and a 120 euro gimbal by non-professionals.

Did any of you do medals or something for the winning team?

No, just a social media post congratulating the winners.

We did pre registration and specially designed medals for the event (so we knew if to do full sets or not for categories). Also we had one superf...match between two of the coaches (one of them was me).

We run a gym comp once or twice a year but it's open for everybody and not strictly "in-house", and quite popular (last time we had 150+ participants). So the experience of running it is a little different, and takes up some time & especially workforce.

The Finnish BJJ Federation's (free) comp system portal makes it really easy to have people signed up in advance, then automatically creates the brackets, and one can use it to display scoreboards with times during the matches (different displays towards the mat area + the judges' table), and the match result log in to the bracket full time etc. (Actually this is the platform that Smoothcomp bought, and basically just changed graphics to it.)

If you don't have access to a system like that, make sure you have some kind of timer that will display the match time towards the mat, and which the people behind the judges' table can easily pause upon the referee's command. Also at least a flipboard score card thing (if you have a points system). Something to throw from behind the table to the mat when time runs out can be useful, typically it's a belt tied to a knot (can get loud so the referee might not hear the end of the time signal or people shouting from behind the table). And that the people behind the table understand the referee's hand gestures beforehand. Perhaps you also need the mark belt of some sort to separate the contestants if they have same color gis + belts.

Kinda depends on the scale of your event, but you might need a few people to run the signing up at the venue + weight/gear check (and keep track of the bracket progression if you don't use an automatic system for that), then referee(s), then a few people behind the judges' table(s) to handle the timer & scoreboard, and preferably somebody who knows first aid standby.

Thanks Tatu,
We're doing sub only and way smaller scale than what you're running (20 pax max)
Good point about having someone in charge of sign in on the day and something to throw out at the end of the match.
Hopefully we can make do with a small team this time.

So good to heard about everyone's experience, every reply gives me something new to think about or add to my planning

My old school back in the states did a yearly sub only comp for white and blue belts. The winners of the whitebelt comp got their blue belts on the spot. Blues got a metal.

Jason does medals for the in house. Refs, Timers, Podium, Paramedics and the works. I'm surprised he didn't post on this yet. I send him your query the other day.
He is in Brisbane, Australia right now so maybe hasn't had time to check.

yo ive run a few in freestyle judo. theyre a fun super light hearted way to get some *semi* competition feel without spending the money etc. we call em grudge matches tho, or king of the hill grudge matches lol most recent one i did was literally to try out a new ruleset idea

theyre good fun!