I live in Memphis and either helped out or cooked for a team at MIM for the last several years.
1. Priceline a hotel. If you try to book direct through Downtown hotels they will gouge u for that weekend. DO NOT STAY IN WEST MEMPHIS,AR. if you can not find a hotel downtown Memphis cheap try midtown or East Memphis. Its safer and you have more food options.
2. What to do... take a tour of the different BBQ restaurants in Memphis, Renedvous downtown (tourist trap but a classic), Neelys Downtown, Interstate on 3rd ave for BBQ spaghetti (Do a lunch there bad neighborhood), Central BBQ on Central Ave in Midtown, The BBQ shop on Madison, Germantown Commissary out East in Germantown, Corkys on Popular Ave,Cozy Corner on North Parkway (Cornish Hens) and many many more.
3. If you know some teams down at the competition its better for you. If not spend a few hours walking around and looking at the booths (unlike KCBS these idiots spend tons of $$$$$ on needless fufu). Food is not given away by competiors (health code and everyone is cooking for sponsors or for competention). Check out the MIM website and see what events are scheduled in the evening.
4. Vendors area overpriced BUT majority of them are really good.
5. They have interesting thing that you can do called cooks caravan where MIM officials take you to select teams and the teams walk you through their booth and tell you a few secrets.
6. Lastly you can sample some pulled BBQ at the peoples choice tent.
I hope this helps you out.
