Volunteering at SF Barbecue Festival, San Francisco CA Oct 22


 

Chris Allingham

Administrator
Staff member
I'll be volunteering at the 2nd Annual San Francisco Barbecue Festival tomorrow, October 22, at The Yard at Mission Rock right across McCovey Cove from AT&T Park in downtown San Francisco.

This year’s festival will include 50 of the best Northern California BBQ vendors serving mouth-watering low and slow barbecue and 15 local breweries providing tastings of 45 different beers. There will also be a 100-team cornhole tournament, 2 bands, and tons of fun activities. Kids under 12 get in FREE and dogs are welcome! Get your tickets at www.sfbbqfestival.com/tickets

Hope to see you there!
 
There seemed to be a larger-than-expected turn-out at the 2nd Annual San Francisco BBQ Festival on Saturday, October 22, 2016. The festival organizers secured the venue at The Yard at Mission Rock, right across McCovey Cove from AT&T Park in downtown SF, they brought in a variety of barbecue and beer vendors, they provided the music and organized the massive cornhole tournament, and Mother Nature provided blue skies and comfortable temperatures.

The smartest thing the festival organizers did was to hire Arlie Bragg to organize the KCBS barbecue competition, as he always puts on a good BBQ event. 38 teams showed up from as far away as British Columbia, Canada to compete for $10,000 in prize money. Some competitors also participated in People's Choice, selling 2 oz. samples of their 'cue to the public.

So a big congratulations to the festival organzers and Arlie for putting on such a great event for all to enjoy!

This was the 11th time that I volunteered to help with judging at a barbecue event in 2016. At most of those events, I served as a judge evaluating the barbecued meats. However, at the SF BBQ Festival, I stood outside the judge's tent and did the turn-in box number switching, quickly and accurately renumbering each box so that its team identity would be unknown to the judges.

Once the last entry was turned in and the judging was complete, I took a walk around the venue to check-out the action. There were a whole lot of people there, enjoying lots of good food and drink and games, but perhaps more than initially expected. One clue: I kept hearing comments about not enough porta-pottys and the lack of supplies therein. I guess that's a double-edged sword for an event organizer...you're happy with the size of the turn-out, but some guests may go away with negative feelings. Still, those problems can be easily solved and this event in 2017 can be even more awesome than 2016.

Now, I can't close this summary without mentioning one item...this was San Francisco, after all, so you have to expect some controversy and activism. There was a group of animal rights activists that forced their way into the venue and marched and cheered with signs to advocate their point of view. The reaction from the crowd was mostly amusement and photo taking of the protesters. At a certain point, the SFPD escorted the protesters toward the exit, where they performed a mock "execution" of an animal, then they marched back and forth outside the venue for a while before finally dispersing.

(Please note...I'm just reporting the facts of what happened. Per the forum's "no politics" policy, I would ask that people refrain from political comments about the previous paragraph.)

Anyway, to wrap things up, here are some photos I took. Hope you enjoy them. If you live in the Bay Area and missed the San Francisco BBQ Festival this year, you'll definitely want to add it to your event calendar next year!

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Here's a photo of those protesters I mentioned earlier...just their backsides as they marched away from me.

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Continued...
 
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California BBQ Association had an booth at the event to promote membership in KCBS and CBBQA.

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I was invited to fly the TVWB banner at the booth, since TVWB is a supporting member of CBBQA. Thanks for the promotional opportunity!

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Thank you Chris for the wonderful photos. I'm glad the event went well. I was thinking of you all while I was teaching ribs down south at a CBBQI class in Corona. That was fun too! Keep it up Chris!
 

 

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