Most throwdowns that go wrong go wrong on the schedule. Too many entries for the kit, a workout that runs long, briefings nobody planned time for. Settle the shape of the day first and the rest is fairly straightforward.
The shape of the day
One day, three workouts. That's right for most gyms. It fits into a Saturday, it's enough workouts for a fair overall result, and it leaves room for a final or a team event if you want one.
Do the capacity sum above with your own numbers. Count the equipment too, per lane: if workout two needs a rower, a barbell and a box per athlete and you own six rowers, you have six lanes for that workout, whatever the floor space says. Then add 20 minutes for each briefing and warm-up window, and a proper lunch break. Most first-time organisers forget the breaks and run an hour late by mid-afternoon.
Divisions and workouts
Scaled and RX cover most gyms. Add intermediate if you've got the numbers. Pairs or a team division is a brilliant way to get newer members involved; plenty of people who'd never enter on their own will happily do it with a mate.
Write and publish the standards before you open entry, because that's what people choose a division on: loads, movements, any substitutions.
For the three workouts, test different things. A short sprint of 4 to 7 minutes (21-15-9 thrusters and burpees is a fine example). Something strength-biased, like a clean ladder in a time window. And a longer chipper, 12 to 15 minutes, that rewards people who pace it. Put a time cap on all three and decide now how capped athletes are scored. Reps completed is the usual answer, and it's fair.
Scoring and judging
Use placing points. Rank everyone in each workout, give them points equal to their placing, lowest total wins. Simple to explain, and it stops one workout with a huge spread of scores from deciding everything. Choose your tie-break in advance (best single placing works) and publish it with the standards.
You need one judge per lane, someone on the clock and heats, someone entering scores and someone on the door. Get the judges together before the first heat and demonstrate every standard on the floor: a good rep, a no-rep, the edge cases. Then brief the athletes the same way. Nearly every argument we've seen at a throwdown traces back to a standard nobody said out loud.
Money
Work out your costs before you set a price. Typical ones: medals or prizes, food and drink for judges and volunteers, printing, any kit you hire, and a buffer for things you forgot. Divide by a sensible number of entries, not a full house. For a local throwdown, individual entries commonly sit somewhere between £15 and £40, and team entries a bit more per team. Price it so you break even at about two-thirds full and you won't lose sleep if a few places don't sell.
A six-week timeline
Six weeks out, fix the date, divisions, capacity and price, and open entry. At four weeks, publish the standards and start asking for judges. Two weeks out, release the workouts if you want people training for them, and close entry once the heats are full. In the final week, put out the heat schedule and check every piece of kit, especially the rowers' monitors and the wall-ball targets.
On the day: briefings, heats, results up after each workout so people know where they stand, and the final standings and presentation at the end. Get photos. People share them for weeks.
A sample day
For 40 athletes, 8 lanes and three workouts, a day might run like this:
- 08:00 judges' briefing and kit check
- 08:45 athlete check-in, 09:15 athlete briefing
- 09:30 to 10:45 workout one, five heats
- 11:15 to 12:30 workout two
- 12:30 to 13:30 lunch, scores checked and posted
- 13:30 to 14:45 workout three
- 15:15 final or team event, 16:00 presentation
The 30-minute gaps between workouts are for resetting kit, checking scores and letting the first heat warm up again. You'll use all of them.
Entries, results and patches
The part organisers underestimate is admin. Taking entries by bank transfer and tracking them in a spreadsheet eats hours, and chasing team names the night before eats more. One entry page with the divisions, places and payment on it saves most of that.
That's what we built Fiz for events to do. Athletes sign up and pay in the app, you enter scores or verify the ones they submit, everyone can follow the leaderboard on their phone, and each athlete gets a patch on their profile with their placing. There's no event fee when entries go through Fiz. If you want the detail, the guides cover setting up an event and running the leaderboard.
After the event
Publish the full results the same evening while everyone's still talking about it. Post the photos within a couple of days and tag the athletes. Send a short message to everyone who entered thanking them, with a link to the results and a date for the next one if you know it. Then ask the judges and a few athletes what they'd change, while it's fresh. The second throwdown is always smoother than the first, mostly because of what organisers write down in the week after the first.
A patch or a medal with the event name and the athlete's placing gives people something to keep. On Fiz, patches carrying each athlete's placing go on their profile once you finalise the results, which is a nice reason for them to come back to the app and to your next event.