Allow me to toss my $0.02 worth in as a BBQ contest organizer who just held its first contest (sanctioned) this past weekend (May 14-15). I have also competed in & worked on the organizing committee for an unsanctioned cooking contest (not BBQ).
As Lake Dogs & Divaherself said, sanctioning provides a new contest immediate credibility along with a stable of cook teams & qualified judges. Our first year contest drew 21 teams in the sanctioned division plus 6 teams in the backyard division. The unsanctioned contest I work with did not reach the 20 team mark until its third year. The unsanctioned contest only uses 5-6 "celebrity" judges for its contest and has to work hard to find those. The first year sanctioned contest had a mailing list of around 80 certified judges that were sent invitations with about 30 accepting. The sanctioning organization also provided experienced contest reps to assist this rookie organizer. Without their help & advice, there are many things I would have overlooked out of sheer ignorance. The contest reps help me avoid problems so our cook teams & judges had a positive experience and will not only be looking forward to come back next year, but will help your contest grow thru word of mouth at the next sanctioned event.
I am in a small town & given the cost to prepare your venue with electricty, water, etc to host a contest, there is no way we could drawn enough teams to have come close to breaking even our first year going it on our own. I haven't gotten my final numbers yet, but despite underestimating the cost of running electricy, we still should around break even for our first year.
The one part that scares most people in going the sanctioning route is having to guarantee the prize money. With the current economy, getting sponsor dollars is tough so I had to take a huge leap of faith. I know I had quite a few restless nights when we were about 2 weeks out & I had only 5-6 teams signed up.
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