People's Choice for Charity


 

Ryan Ko

TVWBB Super Fan
In my other thread several people suggested doing a people's choice to help raise money for our charity (at our BBQ competition). This is something we had already thought about and I love this idea. However, I need people's opinions about how to do this. I know there are basically 2 ways to do this. Either the blind method where you give the competitors the meat (typically 2 pork butts) then someone collects the meat and the public samples all of the blind samples in one location. The other way would be the teams to hand out samples at there areas. I like this because it promotes interaction between the people and the teams. I know it may not be as fair, more of a popularity contest. But I think the people would like it better. I really think the people would enjoy talking to each team. Another draw back would be if the teams have the help/time to do this.

Any oppinions or experiences would be greatly appreciated!
 
Ryan,

Both ways have their pros/cons. I enjoy people's choice where you have an interaction, but it is a burden on our team.

At 1 event, they assigned us 1 volunteer per 2 teams to help. It was a waste, and she caused more bad than good. It really took 2 people to handle the people's choice. 1 person to load up the samples, the other to distribute. For people with a large team/family/friends, that's not an issue. For a 1 or 2 person team, that is an issue.

An event we are doing this fall has an interesting plan for people's choice this year. No discount for entering. No butts provided. Patrons purchase BBQ tickets and give them to a team for samples. Team with most tickets win. So if someone wants to invest time & money in People's Choice, they are going to buy a decent amount of pork and have the people there to help distribute. If they somewhat care, they might buy 1 or 2 butts to hand out. If the don't care, there is no benefit or penalty for entering or not. Also, there are no ballots for people to turn in and the festival to count/keep track of. This was a big issue at the last one I had as a box of ballots disappeared.

Also, they plan on doing a 25/75 split on the profits from the BBQ tickets to the team. 25% of course going to the team, 75% to the festival/charity.

I like this approach as it is something different.
 
We usually don't consider a people's choice. Probably for several reasons-

1. It might cost US to enter, plus meat
2. It might just cost us the meat
3. It's another piece of meat or two to prep/cook
4. It's another, separate category to prep/turn-in
5. I don't want a lot of interaction with the public from 10am-2pm. If you can dedicate a wife or friend or teammate to handle this, that is fine. Otherwise, we're there to do our best at the competition and try to take home some checks.
 
First off, I'm not a big fan of people's choice simply because it's more work on my small team and usually it's more of a popularity contest that an actual judging of your product.
With that said ... I did a contest last year where they required each contestant to cook one or two butts to be served from your site after turn-ins. I wasn't thrilled with the whole idea but they did say they would give each team two butts, two volunteers, and the cups to put the samples in. Well, I have to admit it went very smoothly. We did our normal contest, then after turn-ins I busted up a pork butt, set it on a small table and the volunteers did the rest. If I wanted to be out there "hawking" my pork I could, otherwise it was the volunteers doing all the work. Of course we didn't win (we have never even placed in a ppls choice), but it did go well from a this cooks perspective.
 
I no longer do PC at the contests I run
We now do "Taste of BBQ" if you have strong crowd numbers you can charge from $50 to $400
for limited vending privileges 2 or 3 OZ Tastes
 

 

Back
Top