How are local competitions run?

Most of our local competitions are run in the following manner:

Fencers are seeded (based on rating and club) into pools. Pools usually consist of 5-8 people, depending on the number of fencers. Fencers fence every other fencer in their pool in a 5-touch bout. Once all the pools have completed fencing, a tableau is completed based on how well the fencer did in their pool against fencers in other pools. In our tournaments, 100% of fencers are promoted to the next step. Some competitions restrict promotion to the next level - for example 80%.

The next level is direct eliminations. These are 15-touch bouts. As the name implies, if the fencer loses, they are eliminated from the competition. Final ranking is based on which bracket you initially seeded into from the pools and the bracket you finished in.