Here's what went down from my point of view. The breakdown of the breakdown so to speak.
Friday afternoon I get a call from the GK office letting me know of the 2 items I need to have on hand. The first was a fire extinguisher, the second was a handwashing station. When I asked what a handwashing station was, the reply I got was "a handwashing station". I asked if that meant the soapy water, rinse water, sanitizing solution set-up. Again, I got "a handwashing station". I then proceeded to say that if she meant the separate, rubbermaid unit that cost around $650, where was I supposed to get that with the contest setting up in aropund 15 hours. Once again, the same response.
Saturday at 5:30AM, outside the locked gate, with the line growing behind, no entry. Called GK office and got the promoter on the line telling me that Belmont did not want anyone in there until 6AM. But, the vendors were in there all set up and smoking already. Around 6:15AM got in. The promoter decided to move everyone around without notifying anyone. The original blueprint was scrapped when not all 100 spots were paid for. Not a big issue, but it's number 2 on the list so far in regards to lack of communication. There's more to follow.
Got to set up, and still waiting for water and electric. No water because the supply tank has an electric pump, and without the crew finalizing the electrical hook up, no water. That happened at around 10AM. During that time, I'm still waiting for my meat inspection. fFve guys came into my tent to inspect my meat, but only if I was competing in the Pure Fire Challenge. Since they were not KCBS certified, they left, not knowing where Murray was. Finally at 11AM I got Murray. Already around 3 hours behind, with a ton of family coming.
Nassau County Board of Health comes to inspect as well. Asks for my handwashing station. I point out that I did not know what was meant by it and that I only found out about it a few hours ago. I also said that we were not allowed to give out samples since the vendors were selling food to the general public. I had to satisfy him by using an Igloo beverage cooler and an empty 5 gallon pail for waste water. Even though there were 6 2 headed handwashing stations by the judging area.
The water ran out at 3:30PM. Not to be refilled until 10AM Sunday morning. The promoter had no answer and did not go around to even explain the situation to the teams. I got him as he was driving in his truck. Also, never knowing until today that he was on site the whole time in the RV's parked by the fence!!!!!
Sunday, found out that there was a Guest List for teams. Not one person I spoke with was aware of this. Everyone's family member paid both days to come in a cheer their team on. Never once was this option presented to me or any other team I spoke with. The general public should pay, but for the families of teams, c'mon are you that desparate for 5 bucks.
At 4:30 the band annouces to come to the bandshell for the awards presentation. They continued to play. They took a break. They played again until close to 6PM. Everyone got really tired of baking the sun for almost 90 minutes and started to breakdown. The promoter was still unpacking the trophies while everyone was sweating. He even forgot to bring the Championship Belt to the stage.
Some teams had brought their vehicles into the area in the morning and left them there. They were were all packed and ready to go. When other teams, including myself tried to bring our vehicles in, we were told we can't after we were told we can. Temperatures were already rising, and this made it worse. Finally were allowed. All around, the Belmont security and the Staff were very upset with yet again, the lack of communication.
The general public was very upset that they had to pre-purchase BBQ BUCKS in order to eat at the event. The vendors had no control over it because they had to fork over 25% of the sales to the promoter. It was out of their hands. They were told to expect around 30,000 people. It was even cited in a Newsday article in Friday's edition. (he claims that there were 15,000 at Hecksher last year!!!!) One vendor purchased 1,000 racks of ribs. Another paid .20 per ear of corn and they were being sold for $5. The beer was sold for $5 a cup. Another ripoff. If it was outside of Nassau, Budweiser would have gave it away. The promoter was even selling t-shirts at the event, not even giving them to team members.
The event keeps getting worse and worse. I will not be attending next year's event, if there is one. I will be writing a letter to KCBS detailing exactly what is here. Even though I don't care about winning, I wanted to get a trophy just to leave it there on the stage. It's about family, food, fun, and the camraderie between teams, but it's not worth the B.S.