WSoBBQ 2015 - The Arroewhead Experience

I loved it. I preferred the awards in the kemper "getting your feet dirty" I think they did an awesome job.

I thought it was great. You really had room to spread out and the atmosphere by the stadium was fun. It will be interesting to see how they do awards if it is raining.

For that big event to move venues, it went pretty well overall. I also heard some stories about parking for visitors but they will get it figured out by next year.

It was packed Friday night like usual so it didn't keep that many people away.

gettinbasted said:

I thought it was great. You really had room to spread out and the atmosphere by the stadium was fun. It will be interesting to see how they do awards if it is raining.

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I thought the same thing when we were sitting there, I said man this would suck if it was raining.

Thoughts on the Royal

As a lifelong fan of the American Royal, I was upset about the move since it was announced. It was nice to have the space, but something's bothered me more. Our 21 year old runner has developed for the first time ever shin splints because of going up and down the ramp for 2 days. Turn ins were congested too.

I also felt that it was hard to find the vendors and I am still trying to figure out how the media keeps saying they had more this year than previous years unless they are counting each food truck.

Mostly I missed the crowds. One of our teams favorite parts of the Royal was people watching and chatting with the crowds in the north lot. Being in a prime location in lot G this year, we saw only a dozen people walk by. Crowds were funneled to the food trucks.

I know this move let more teams participate, but we lost more than we gained. I hope the city tears down Kemper Arena and we move back home soon!!!!

I opted out for the same reason. No way I am paying $50 (parking 2 tickets in) just to walk into the Royal. Maybe my friends and I are cheap but I don't know many that went due to admission prices. Sure hope they can figure out something for next year where the average person can actually go!

We were in Lot F only competed in the Open but we were there all weekend. We saw our ambassador only once when we checked in Friday morning. We cook on backwoods so water is a must. It took them close to four hours to get a water truck on Saturday. Overall the atmosphere stunk compared to the West Bottoms. Sorry to be a Debbie downer.

I was there most of the day Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday, I saw absolutely no contest personnel. there were two people that came and checked the meat, that was it.

My biggest complaint, I was in Lot G but was forced to park in Lot A. That was about a mile walk to get from my truck to my space. The reason it was such a big deal, there were about 100 parking places right on the other side of the fence that nobody was allowed to park in. don't understand that thinking at all...

We have been to the old place 2 times in the past . Both time we cooked from the Dark Side and it was quieter then it was in the Invitational side this time . Other then that we had no issues . as always for us it was just a great deal for us to be able to compete with so many of the big dogs .

We loved it! It was much more open which made for a more pleasurable experience overall.

Like most, I loved the room we had, but the traffic and parking issues were terrible. That is to be expected just like it was down by Kemper. The problem in my opinion was that it was $20 no matter how close or far you parked with there being no option to park at a different location and take a shuttle.

We were in lot C and never seemed to have any issues getting our call-ins timely, but it used to be nice to be inside to talk to the vendors.

Lots of pros and cons to it, so it's hard to like or dislike the move out there.

The biggest pro.... NO FREAKING TRAIN AT 5:00am

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YES parking was to high. And couldn't park that close, but then again liberty lot at kemper was on 670 dang near. I hope they change the price in years to come but that could be the Chiefs. It makes you wonder what their cut is.

All in All I'll be there next year no matter what, even if I take 526th in pork again. Cmon man! That was the worst part of the whole weekend

From a cook perspective it was fine. Once we checked in we never saw ambassadors but never needed them. Really a sign that the move was well planned. Could not imagine the task of moving 600 teams to a new facility. Parking sucked traffic Friday for public was terrible but I am not sure the bottoms was better. Hope that kink gets worked out. Parking cost too much. Overall, as a cook in lot g, went smooth, great venue, space seemed to be size advertised, and the added perk of heated toilets in the stadium (if you timed it right at turn ins) was nice. Looking forward to next year.

My biggest gripe is that if you were on the dark side and competed in the Invitational, you had an extra 6 minute walk for turn ins. We had been told there would be two turn in areas for both the aopen and Invitational but they changed it at the last minute.

We didn't have the greatest experience. We never saw our ambassador and we also lost power a couple of times Saturday around 1am. Our Porta John had apparently been used by workers all week and when we dropped off Wednesday evening, it was pretty disgusting. After talking to 4 different members of the staff and emailing Kim, nothing was ever done about it so we just dealt with it until Sat AM when they cleaned them at the scheduled time. I heard several others had the same issue with the used porta johns. We had a few folks leave after driving around the stadium 3-4 times and still not getting to park. I think it was different depending on where you were at but we seemed to be in a dead zone with not much activity from people or event staff.

Hopefully it changes next year!!

This was our first Royal so I have no basis for comparison. Considering the enormity of the event, I thought it went very well. We arrived wednesday afternoon and did have some issue finding an ambassador to check us in....and since it was our first, we felt a little lost, but we found our spot and waited. I'm not sure we ever saw our ambassador though. Our porta potty was on our site, clean, and zip tied when we got there and had no real problems with that. Volunteers coming around with ice and charcoal was so frequent it was almost annoying but appreciated. Grey water barrels were an issue but our power was pretty good. We lost it twice, once Saturday Morning (microwave and heater) and again Saturday afternoon (microwave again). Like most, I thought it ridiculous that all the competitor parking was in Lot A when there was abundant parking in each of the lots still. It would be nice to be able to park in F if I'm cooking in F so I can easily make a trip out if I need to Friday afternoon or saturday morning without having to walk a half hour each way to the car. My runners had no problem with turn ins and we all enjoyed the whole experience. We've decided that we will be back next year even if it is just for the open. I'm hoping that they get a few of the hiccups taken care of but it isn't enough to keep me away.

Does anyone know if there was a backup plan for awards if it was raining?

We had a good experience overall. We were fortunate to have a big enough space that we were able to park our truck on site. Lots of foot traffic Friday night at the corporate tent, more than last year.

All the services from our ambassadors, water truck, ice cart,etc. was available most of the time.

Like others, our guests biggest complaints was the time it took to park and the walk from the parking area.

We enjoyed this spot better than when we were at the Kemper.

Overall I like the new spot over the Kemper. It didn't seem like there were as many vendors this year, maybe they were just all spread out and I didn't see them. Maybe they should put up a big tent for all the vendors to work out of.

If you left the site anytime after noon on Friday getting back in was not fun. I got turned away from the gate for having a tiny knife in my pocket. I explained that I had 14" knives in my trailer but that didn't any change minds. I understand they have rules to follow so I don't blame the staff. I would suggest they have an "exhibitor only" gate for the teams to move in and out from. Overall a good start to a new location!

We never made it to the old site, so this was our one and only experience.

Overall, we dug it. Tons of space for teams. We didn't feel packed in at all.
I ran boxes and we moved up our timeline to hit first window for sure. As such, I was as early as 4th in line and almost always the first 12-15 in line. I did notice a long line out the door after each day's chicken turn in. IMO.....it could have been better, but each contest is what it is. Teams need to plan for it.

The awards venue was awesome. Agreed about the rain making that suck though.

Water and ice carts seemed to move around plenty, but having Grizzly coolers and only needing 2 buckets full of water all weekend, we didn't really need either much.

Parking over in A lot sucked. We figured out that we could park in N lot (general parking for free) all weekend which was a LOT closer to our site in F lot.

I took a walk over to the dark side on Friday night with another team. THAT was something to see for sure. It was a haul and took some time, but something that I'm glad I took the time to do. Can't explain that. Just have to see it.





Overall....it was awesome.
The 2nd place 180 in brisket on Sunday made it all better. :becky: