Where Does My $250 Go???

Generator, rental of property, insurance, rental of equipment, tents, tables, chairs, ports potties, water

Last year my contest had 33 teams, who paid on average $230. This equals about $7,600. We paid out $10,000 and probably another $1,000 on some kick-a$$ trophies and ribbons.

Add to the above list advertizing and space rental in some cases.

TIM

Hopefully in my pocket. lol keith

I've only done two comps, but at both of those, the total of all entry fees has been less than the payouts. Most of the other stuff you mention is paid for by sponsorships.

Profit

yea wouldn't that be nice. We always pay out more in prize money than we take in from entry fees. Everything else is paid out of sponsorships.

Im sure Ron Cates , arlie Bragg etc do it "for the love of bbq"

Sledneck said:

Im sure Ron Cates , arlie Bragg etc do it "for the love of bbq"

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I know...what a bunch of jerks.

Make a profit, I wish. We are lucky to pay our bills by the end of the competition. It is expensive to keep all the teams happy and the public. Our biggest profit is good public relations and satisfied competitors.

(putting on my organizer hat now)

One of the challenges of having a BBQ contest is that it is quite difficult to make a profit. Many times I'm approached by charities who think they want to hold a contest as a fund-raiser and they end up changing their mind when they learn how much work is involved vs how much money is raised.

At the center of this is the fact that for all intents and purposes, these events are a private party for cooks and judges. Little is offered to the public beyond gawking at the teams unless you add other stuff to the sanctioned contest to get a full-fledge festival. Even so, the most successful events in these parts tend to be run with a "break-even attitude" where the goal is to promote tourism and community involvement rather than make money.

At the events I have organized, 75% or more of the cook team's entry fees go right back into cash prizes and trophies. The rest goes into sanctioning fees, Rep expenses, renting tents, tables & chairs, providing signage, power, water, trash service, ice, porta pots, t-shirts, copying of score sheets, security, advertising and a hundred other line items every contest requires. Of course the funds remaining from entry fees only makes a dent in these expenses, which is why corporate cash sponsorship is critical to the success of most events.

As cooks and judges, we do have out of pocket expenses, but we have to remember that in truth our hobby is being subsidised by the event sponsors and sometimes the public attendees, if a gate fee is charged. If we paid for all the costs ourselves, this expensive hobby would be even more costly!

DawgPhan said:

I know...what a bunch of jerks.

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Point taken wrong, I see no problem with what they do. I admire it

How can the KCBS charge sanctioning fees when all I see about them is things they are NOT doing anymore...not new things they are doing for the teams.....what was the last strong thing the KCBS did FOR THE COMPETITORS since they are the backbone of the comps. ....it might be a lot, I don't know....maybe someone can clear it up for me

The entry fee does not pay for the comp and the expenses. We are lucky to have the event break even from the comp. We subsidize the comp with the public attending our event and the vendor fees. Our group thought hard about not doing a contest as part of our BBQ Festival this year. In the end I convinced them to do it for at least one more year.....

The advantage of using KCBS is that they send reps to run the scoring/judging, they provide a uniform set of rules, and they help promote the event in the bullsheet and on their website. With that said, the fees are not cheap. I think KCBS needs to evaluate this and find out a way to make it more affordable for organizers or organizers will start turing to alternative ways of providing uniformity among contests.

www.brockportbbqfest.com

Smokin' Hicks said:

How can the KCBS charge sanctioning fees when all I see about them is things they are NOT doing anymore...not new things they are doing for the teams.....what was the last strong thing the KCBS did FOR THE COMPETITORS since they are the backbone of the comps. ....it might be a lot, I don't know....maybe someone can clear it up for me

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Sam's Club National BBQ Tour
Kingsford Challenge
Tyson Best Wings On The Planet
Bigger TOY payouts
Ranchers Reserve Beef Cup

These are a few things that come to mind right off the top of my head

The biggest expenses for The Battle of The Brethren contest.

$1200-1500 in KCBS fees and expenses.
Then the generator and fuel costs
misc rentals. Tables, PA systems, etc.

We try to put at least 95% of entry fees into the prize pool and pay the expenses out of sponsorship money. Usually, I only subtract the KCBS "per team fee" which runs $12-$17 per team from the prize pool. If we were able to payout more than entry fees, we sure would.

For one thing, IBCA is cheaper in its sanctioning fees compared to KCBS. The head judge expenses are usually much cheaper too, since IBCA assigns head judges that are local to the contest. And in this instance, I mean local (one of my contests is 4 miles from where I live). The farthest my wife and I go to head judge is usually less than 4 hours from the house. KCBS tries to do this, but for some reason, we seem to get reps from Tennessee and other places for the contests in Louisiana, which increase cost. One thing you notice around here is IBCA contests typically do not top load prize money. In other words, contests like to pay out to the finishers of each meat rather than paying out large sums to the top few overall finishers. Typically around here IBCA contests have smaller prize packages, but they pay out more in each meat category by proportion. A grand champion at most IBCA contests in Louisiana gets a Jack draw, a trophy, and maybe a small cash prize of a few hundred dollars. The KCBS events often pay many thousands of dollars to the grand and reserve champions. I guess this comes down to who the cooker base is and how you attract them. KCBS contests go for the cook who travels a great deal. Here in Louisiana for IBCA contests, we go for getting the local cook (with a few from Texas added for good measure). Some of the difference comes in by how the contest is put together. Often at a KCBS event, you have to bring in power and water for the contest weekend. Some IBCA events are held in RV parks or other facilities that already have power and water in the ground ready to go. Hence you do not need to rent generators and so forth. As the Louisiana Pit Boss for IBCA, my goal is to keep contest fees low to attract as many cooks as possible. We work with promoters to help them find solutions to keep costs down. KCBS does not have an equivalent to a local/regional/state Pit Boss. That might be something KCBS needs to consider.