[djmarko]

Speaking as a judge who has judged 10 or so contests I would not pay to be a judge at a local contest. Other than Grill Kings which is not that far away almost all the other contests I've done have been 2-4 hours travel time. A couple of them I've even had to get a motel room. I'm not going to add a judging fee to the expenses I already have. I can understand an event like the Royal charging a fee because they probably have so many volunteers it's kind of a way of narrowing down the field to the most serious people.