# New BBQ Event



## smokingranby (Dec 17, 2015)

I am part of a drug prevention organization in my community.   We are going to put on a BBQ comp for bragging rights for local businesses.  We are going to raise a little money but our main focus is bringing the community together and getting the prevention message across.  We are partnering with a 5k being held in the morning and a car show being held that night.  I'm thinking about charging $200 for teams.  We are wanting to have a ticket booth set up to buy tickets to give to teams for food (sandwich) and allow teams to sell drinks.  We are thinking 3 tickets for $10.  Does that sound about right or is there a better set up for this?  We are not providing meat so I figured if the teams sold the drinks they could recoup a little money. We wanted to keep it small the first year and try to grow it to comp teams maybe next year.  Any other ideas or help would be appreciated.


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## JckDanls 07 (Dec 17, 2015)

thinking you might find it a little tough to get local BBQ'ers to sign up for $200...  If you would update your profile to include your location...  We wouldn't have to ask where about this would be.... to help better understand your geographical area...  If your in a big city your chances would be better.... small town not so good at that price... 
     Depending on how many tickets it will take to purchase food (sandwiches)  and drinks will dictate ticket prices... I don't see people spending a lot of money if a drink (thinking a bottle of water here) is going to be a minimum of one ticket ($3.33)...  If you are saying tickets for food and cash for drinks..  it's sad to say but some people would sell their food for the cash instead of tickets..  No way to control that... Were you planning on giving back a certain percentage for each ticket turned in from a team ??

Just a few thoughts...


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## sfprankster (Dec 18, 2015)

I have a background in competing in local, national and international levels in chocolate competitions. I am the owner/chocolatier of a small artisan chocolate business and looking at the structuring you've laid out, the costs are prohibitive for a small, local event. Our small, local events have no booth fees associated with them, unless you need extra space, and then it's only $40. We agree to provide samples for the tickets sold and presented, and we are allowed to sell our product at the event. This is somewhere near 400-600 samples and 500+ attendance. The international events, all of our samples are purchased by the promoter. Some national/international events we participate in are 5-10k attendance. A portion of the public ticket sales, goes to pay for the samples, appearance fees and other associated expenses(venue, permits, insurance, staffing, marketing, etc). We are paid appearance fees to participate in events on this national scale, in large media/population markets(San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc). 

A lot really depends on what you consider local? Los Angeles, CA(millions) or Oakdale, CA(few thousand)? There's a world of difference in the scale of local bragging rights between the two. It's hard to put a price on local bragging rights in a small community. For us, in a community like San Francisco, where there is 90-100 local artisan chocolatiers, it can give you a noticeable marketing advantage over the competition. In a small community like Santa Cruz, CA, where there are less than 10, not so much. 

Have you considered media coverage? Local or national? PR notices to major media outlets or a local TV/radio/newspaper crew(s)?

In the structure you outlined, what you are asking of the teams, is to donate time, experience, food, bbq supplies and booth fees, with only the chance to sell drinks to offset costs. Depending on the approximate attendance, the total to participate could run into the $1000's rather quickly. I see where you have considered selling tickets for food, have you also considered giving back a percentage of the tickets sales to the teams? This would make the biggest difference in offsetting some of the cost of teams to participate.

More items to consider...

How many sandwiches/meals are each team expected to serve? What portion size? Sample or meal sized? 

just my $0.02


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## smokingranby (Dec 20, 2015)

Thanks for the thoughts guys. It will be held at the county seat. That city is about 15k plus some of the surrounding areas. We are just south of a 50k city. After speaking to some businesses and the local chamber is how I decided on the $200 fee. I was told businesses pay lots more than that to be part of other events to advertise and gain exposure. I thought maybe a little on the high side but thought the "experts" would know. It's not a set in stone price as we have not drawn up a flyer yet or officially announced the event. I was thinking sample size as far as the food was concerned. I will take your opinions to the team and try to figure it out.


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## sfprankster (Dec 20, 2015)

Good luck with the event and have fun!!!


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## backwoodskevin (Dec 23, 2015)

A lot of local events around here use "Barbecue Bucks". Visitors exchange money for some sort of fake currency to be used at the event, and at the end of the day the vendors get 80 percent to the organizer's 20 percent. That said, one event has gone to a straight vending fee after vendors got tired of dealing with barbecue bucks and having to price up their food to make any money


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