Fundraising during a BBQ comp??
 

We started a small town rib cook off last year during the yearly town festival. I talked with the people who put together the festival the other day and they were saying how the festival doesn't make enough money to pay for itself.

I am wondering if anyone has ever had a people's choice rib winner and had the people pay? So, for $5 (or whatever price) you get to sample all of the ribs and nominate the winner.

If someone has done this before, could you let me know some of the logistics of it?

Are there other ideas that might work to help raise a little money?

I appreciate the help!

> I am wondering if anyone has ever had a people's choice rib winner and had the people pay? So, for $5 (or whatever price) you get to sample all of the ribs and nominate the winner.

Peoples choice here is blind, sold at $5 per plate, a plate consists of about 1/2 an ounce each of 4 different entries; pulled pork butts. Here they sell hundreds of these plates and sell out usually in about 30 minutes, but we also have 14000 folks in attendance, and the competitors are world recognized competitors... They provide us a 9 lb butt; we cook it and sauce it as we desire, turn it in pulled as we would most any other entry. The people who pay then vote for which one of the 4 they preferred. Most points/votes wins. I'm not sure if they use it for a money maker as much as they use it to get the crowd involved in BBQ...

Hog Happening in Shelby NC has a taster's choice on Friday night. The public pays x amount of money for x amount of tickets and gets a sample of whatever BBQ the teams that are participating in have. Each person gets 1 vote for who they like the most. The teams get back I think 70% of the price of ticket they turn back in and 30% goes to the children's home that the comp supports.

^^^ I really can't remember the exact amount of % the team gets back. Maybe it's 70 cents per ticket.

It is pretty common to have 'buck a bone' contests where the teams are given ribs by the organizer and the public can redeem tickets (purchased from the organizer) for a rib from whatever team they like.

It only costs the team rub and effort and the organizers often get the ribs donated or at cost. The public loves it and it raises a nice chunk of change.

The local event that does it here does something like 3 tickets for 5 dollars or 10 for 10 dollars.

Eric

There is comp coming up near DC that does the buck a bone deal. Contestants are offered $100 off the entry fee if they cook ten racks of organizer-provided ribs.

We do it all the time in California. Sell $2 tickets. Teams give samples for a tickets. Teams get $1 for every ticket. The other dollar goes to the sponsored charity.

Just keep in mind that once you start serving /selling to the public, the local health department will likely get involved and may have some requirements of the teams.