BBQ Craze Dying Down???

I can only speak for myself but finances always play a big role in my decision. When you look at the average cost of a contest running between $800-$1000 and then you throw in your smoker, trailer and everything else you have it's quite an investment and commitment.

Then if you're real serious you add in costs of classes so you can stay on top of trends and compete or try to compete with top teams it begins to limit the actual amount of times you can afford to actually go and be a part of a competition.

I would love to be able to do more but between what I mentioned above and you throw in work commitments and family and the max I can do per year is around 3-5 contests and likely more like 2-3.

Let's see cost, kids are getting bigger but one is 3 going on 4 and the other one going on two. Potty training, trying to be there for my kids. Wife works opposite shifts of me now. Probably going to be looking to try and find a team mate who can help with the workload. Until that happens Sam's is the one and probably only competition all year. Looking at being done with competition if I can't find a team mate. I have competed backyard but man the commitment is unreal by yourself when it comes to costs and literally not having the extra hands I use to have with my wife being there. Practicing for the pro side is overwhelming on a good day and a nightmare on a bad day. I got to go.check my ribs.... Back.to.the grind.

Interesting....hadn't thought about it, but it does seem to be fading. I still think the politics of the event coordinator and the fickle attitude of the judges takes a lot of the enjoyment out of contests. We need to relax and let the fun back into it.

It seems to be here. When you have the same judges following the same teams around and those teams always win or finishing high people grow tired of it. The last straw foe me was a contest that looked like they went to a resthome to get the judges and this was KCBS.

Looks like this year there were 2 comps in Missouri and 1 in Kansas this weekend along with Red Dirt and the Sams Regional in Vegas. Last year there was 1 comp in Missouri, and the rest were quite a drive away frlm Oklahoma. Might have something to do with it.

Everything goes through cycles of growth and decline. Competition BBQ is in a decline cycle for multiple reasons. For teams, some of the reasons are (in no particular) costs of contests, inconsistent judging system, costs and time commitment to stay competitive. I truly believe KCBS needs to be much more proactive, acknowledge the issues and take action. Unfortunately, I don't have much confidence in that happening,

What's a good way to measure this? How about total number of contests in the US per year to see if the number of contests are growing or shrinking? The number of teams that competed in contests / year to see if the number of competition teams are growing or shrinking? And the sum of teams at all contests to see if overall participation is growing or shrinking?
Anybody have easy access to KCBS data back 10 years or more to graph these trends? I for one would be interested.

For my wife and I, we competed for about 5 years. We won and it was fun. We won more and it got too serious when we got up to about 15-20 contests a year. We've done 1 contest in the last two years. I plan on 3-5 this year mostly local to see if it's fun again. It's expensive. Maybe that's why it got so serious? I don't really think so. Probably more of my competitive nature. We will see.

I have gotten the feeling that it has been on the decline for a while now. When the Sam's Tour had sign-ups, I found out that the club 4 miles from my house was hosting a contest, and since I only do backyard for now, I was hesitant to sign up for their pro contest, but after a few days, there were still openings, so I took the plunge, and the remainder didn't fill up until a week later. It seems that Sam's is the tour that everyone wants to cook on, yet these openings took a while to fill. I also see more contests on the KCBS website that have "cancelled" listed next to them. I guess the fad has passed, and only the strong and dedicated will continue.

#1. It's expensive if you don't have sponsors.

What it will cost me just for meat for one contest this year.

Chicken-$15 18 pieces
Ribs-$40.00 4 racks
Pork-$85.00 3 butts
Brisket-$160.00 1 brisket

(I don't have to buy premium meat, but I choose buy premium meat so I can have the best chance to win)

Average of $275.00 entry fee per comp.

Average gas to the comp. $120.00

The plan is to do 8 (maybe 9) comps this year. The total for just the above expenses is $5,560.00

Now add in rubs and sauces, about $1,000.00 for the year. (Includes practice cooks)

RV/Truck expenses Average about $1,000.00 per year. (Oil change, transmission fluid change, tires, breaks, registration, insurance)

Wood, BBQ tools, charcoal,misc. other BBQ expences $600.00/year.

Total is $8,160. I figure it's going to cost me $1,000.00 per contest.

Now I can take my wife on 2 nice week long all inclusive vacations for that. This year we're planning on making a "run" at it with 8 comps just to see if all the hard work will pay off. Next year, we'll probably back off to 5-6 comps and go on one of those vacations instead.

#2 (And not far behind #1) Other family commitments.

Edit:

I don't want to sound as if I'm complaining because I'm not. I'm just giving a response to the original poster as to a reason or two why things may be down. I'm very passionate about BBQ and love what we do.

That sounds about right.

Just my luck I'm just getting into it.
Now what am I going to do with a Deep South smoker i just order. The BBQ Craze may go down a little but it will never go away.

Not seeing it around Nashville, most of the long running contests are still going strong as far as I can tell. New ones continue getting added. Wait more than a few days to sign up for Smoke on the Shores (just added last year) and you'll probably end up on the waiting list. That contest went from 40+ to 60+ teams this year, and it's a great and well run event.

Taking the competitive side out of it, I think the BBQ craze in general is stronger then ever. I love talking bbq with people. It seems almost everytime I'm engaged in a conversation with a stranger, that person just bought a smoker, or will be buying a smoker soon, or wants to buy a smoker.

Serious Hog said:

Not seeing it around Nashville, most of the long running contests are still going strong as far as I can tell. New ones continue getting added. Wait more than a few days to sign up for Smoke on the Shores (just added last year) and you'll probably end up on the waiting list. That contest went from 40+ to 60+ teams this year, and it's a great and well run event.

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Unfortunately, I'm not sure Nashville is the best place to look. It is a mixed bag here. Looks like word went out today that the big National BBQ Cup on Memorial Day weekend is being cancelled. On top of that a great long-running contest, that had been in place the same weekend right down the road in Lewisburg for years, has been cancelled (likely pushed out by the aforementioned BBQ Cup). I don't know if the Lewisburg folks can pull something together this late, but it's unfortunate.

The Smoke on the Shores contest is a different animal because Jeff and Jason have done a fantastic job setting up, promoting, and communicating that contest. It will keep growing.

The other one is Winchester & like Smoke on the Shores, it comes down to great organizers. The folks there have been doing a great job for 30 years!

Lots of teams around here have turned to doing steak cook offs. Cheaper to enter, cheaper meat, cheaper grills.... still comparative cooking

porkingINpublic said:

Lots of teams around here have turned to doing steak cook offs. Cheaper to enter, cheaper meat, cheaper grills.... still comparative cooking

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Pays well too!

Up here in the prairies of Canada we are just starting to see the boom in teams and added events. We've cooked a local contest for 5 years and it's been about 10-12 teams up until two years ago it was 15 and last year I think it was close to or over 20, now that doesn't sound like a lot for a small passion project it's not bad. Some of the contests have grown from 20 teams a couple of years ago to over 40.