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I have been to some really good tournaments in my time as well as some really badly run ones. However, none of them have been perfect. Following is a list I came up with off the top of my head to what makes a tournament successful. Please add your own comments and suggestions and help create a future reference point that organizers can use to put on great events, which will benefit the whole BJJ community.

1. Online registration (users are responsible for their own registration, no deciphering hand-written scribble, you enter the wrong division, it's your fault.)
2. Online schedule (people can then show up when they want instead of hanging around all day). Divisions can not start until their scheduled time.
3. Each mat needs a minimum of 4 officials:
   • Referee
   • Timekeeper
   • scoreboard operator
   • Marshall
   Ideally you should have spare staff to rotate in and give the officials a breaks during the day.
4. Have a warm-up area, too many tournaments don't have warm up areas and competitors have to fight cold.
5. Shower / change room facilities. Toilets should be checked/cleaned during the day to stock up on toilet paper and clean them.
6. Well stocked Canteen with cold drinks and hot food.
7. Brackets posted early in the day, so you can see who you are fighting and what mat your bracket is on.
8. A marshaling area / bull pen, all fighters for their division go to the bull pen and get their name ticked off by the marshal and if they leave the bull pen they are scratched. An empty mat is the enemy of a well-run tournament.
9. A P.A. system that is set up well enough to hear what they are actually saying. People need to be warned of scratchings at their marshaling time, not when they are due to be on the mat. get everyone for a division in the bull-pen ready.
10. On the front of each table, put what division is currently in progress and the division that follows it, so people can be ready for their division to be called.
11. Instead of having a mat empty waiting to give people a break between rounds, start the next division, run a match or 2 in the next division and then go back to the next round of the currently running division.
12. Award medals / trophies etc. immediately following the completion of a division, instead of making everyone wait around all day.
13. Have medical staff to attend to any injuries
14. Put some of the money made running the event into paying the staff
15. Mats should have an active area and a warning area so that matches can be stopped and reset in the middle should they start encroaching on the warning area. Instead of having all one colour mats and ending on wooden floor, because refs will let the match continue until it hits the wooden floor.
16. Weigh-In when your division is called to the bull-pen (avoiding the lenghty queue at the start of the day) Instant scratching if you don't make weight
17. Registration closes a couple of days before the event to finalize the brackets. No same-day registrations.
18. Use an accepted well established rule set (IBJJF / CBJJ / FILA), don't make up your own rules. Ref's should be able to volunteer their time at multiple comps and not have to learn multiple rule-sets. Also competitors will not have to learn what is and isn't allowed at multiple comps, also then there is no excuses about not understanding the rules.

I have come up with this list as just a lay person who has attended a lot of tournaments, so I may be missing some important stuff from an organizer's perspective.

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