[Divemaster]

When you do finish your Etiquette Statement, I would love to have it to pass on to a couple of events that I think would actually use it...

Originally Posted by DivaHerself

Honestly, a lot of the potential misunderstanding by the public that we've seen has been engendered by the event promoters. The practice of running local ads that proclaim "Come and taste championship barbecue!" clearly lead the public to believe they're going to eat, and most of them further assume they'll eat FREE from competitors, not paying vendors for what is clearly not competition food.

Then there is the practice of charging at the gate, on top of having to buy food. We've had members of the public huffily and loudly insist we stop work to explain to them exactly what their gate fee was for. And I can see their point, if they didn't particularly want to purchase a t-shirt or admission to a car show.

These marketing and organization practices are often undertaken by the venue's publicists and clearly not by the BBQ contest's organizer, so it's kind of unfair to lay it at the BBQ contest's doorstep to deal with/reeducate/straighten out.

I couldn't agree more...