2010 Morgan Hill No Bull BBQ Cook-Off

Saturday, May 8, 2010



This is their 'first annual' event. Mother's Day weekend has always been tough for me. Over the past year's, I have twice done shows up in Windsor (1 day) and they have a good turnout for that one. However, the booths are clustered tightly together and their aisles are only about 3 feet wide. Also, it can get pretty darn hot up there. Uh uh. I've done the International Festival of the Winds before and that was pretty bad; only 3 actual vendors (including Kettle Korn). There's also Mother's Day in the Park in Los Banos and an Arts and Crafts Festival on Park Street in Alameda, which seemingly might be the better of the lot.

We drove down to Morgan Hill on Friday to set up and it took twice the usual time to get there due to numerous pockets of traffic. I was able to locate Michelle once arriving there in the midst of dozens of RVs parked in a lot with their BBQ grills set up for the competition. She led us over to our spot, where we set up our canopy, grids and left most of our merchandise inside and put the covers on and left. On the way out, we drove over to Cochrane Ave., where we dropped by Chipotle's and picked up some burrito bowls to take home and eat. They were good, of course.

ON SATURDAY MORNING, we got there pretty early, around 6:30am. I like to get to these places early to avoid congestion and things are a lot easier. I unloaded the remainder of my goods and removed the covers on my canopy and then parked my van out on the street; pretty close by. I returned and we went to work arranging all our things and were able to 'open up' on three sides, which would be great for selling. Took us up until around 9:30am to get things arranged.

MY NEIGHBOR ARRIVED around 7:30 and began setting up his canopy. He asked me if I thought that he should attach his weights to his canopy. I told him about some of my flying experiences and suggested that he weigh his canopy down. Once again, always WATCH OUT FOR FLYING CANOPIES. The wind did pick up on Sunday afternoon and he was fortunate to be weighed down. I spent part of the afternoon chasing down hats.

I TOOK SEVERAL WALKS AROUND THE EVENT. Was getting a bit hungry around noontime, so I checked out the food booths. A large percentage of them were there only for the competition. It was pretty neat because almost all of them had RVs nearby in their spaces or other trailers, etc. It must be so nice for them to go from one event to another with their RVs. You know, for year's I dreamed about getting an RV and going to Arizona and other places and set up our booth just outside the motor home. A number of years ago, we did buy a 29-foot Tioga and have taken it to a number of shows, including Arizona and Oregon.

Many of the booths had signs which said that you had to give them a certain number of tickets for samples. A couple BBQers were selling items for cash but I guess they were only offering something like pulled pork sandwiches.

I SAW PEOPLE GATHERED around some of the BBQers taking close-up shots of the ribs being cooked. Kind of funny. It was hilarious watching one of the cookers spreading the sauce very artistically across the ribs with a long sweeping motion. These people were sticking their camera's about a foot away from the ribs and snapping pictures. Now, tell me. Can you imagine a bunch of people holding clipboard's and taking notes as they showed them how to do the ribs.

BUYING TICKETS was impossible for awhile because they ran out just after noon and there was a long line of people waiting to purchase them so they could 'sample' the ribs, etc. I guess they were selling sheets of tickets for $20 or something like that. I wasn't going to wait around. I was hoping to pick up a plate of ribs with some baked beans and potato salad. That sounds good, but there was no way.

I FORGOT TO ASK but I am wondering if the BBQ 'teams' get a cut of the action from the tickets that they collect from patrons/eaters/testers or does the Chamber (promoter's) rake in all kinds of dough from the sales of the tickets. Can anybody tell me? comments@starvingvendors.com

Today (Monday) I did receive responses with regard to the tickets and I will share this information with you.

The sampling tickets were part of the People's Choice voting competitions
that the Chamber ran in addition to the normal four category official BBQ
competition. 75% of the money will be paid back to the BBQ'ers. This is
typically viewed as a way for the competitors to offset their costs for
competing which can run 4-6 times the cost of the actual entry fee. One of
our competitors traveled all the way from Utah for this event. Out of the
25% retained by the Chamber of Commerce we also paid a cash prize of $400
and a trophy to the BBQ competitor that received the most votes from the
Samplers. Each set of 5 samples included one vote ticket.

THERE CERTAINLY MUST HAVE BEEN a lot of 'action' throughout the day over there on the BBQ side of the field, but I wasn't able to be over there during the afternoon as I was over in my booth tending to business. So, just keep in mind, that my review of this event is from a vendor's perspective.

I DECIDED TO TAKE A WALK FURTHER DOWNTOWN onto the main street and search out some food. I walked a couple blocks and heard music and saw people waving flags. "Wonderful," I said to the Channel 4 newscaster who was interviewing one of the people there. "So nice to see the Red, white and blue," I shouted as I walked by. They turned out to be Tea Party members out there protesting over what happened earlier at one of the local high schools where 4 boys were booted out by the principal. I am not going to delve into this matter and will keep politics out of this. I am not so certain that they are doing the right thing out there, but I admire them standing up for their rights, if that is really the motive for all of this.   Click on images to see larger.



AFTER I PASSED BY THEM, I SAW SIGNS for a Farmer's Market and decided to walk two blocks to an area where I saw about 30-40 canopies. I guess they have this every Saturday. I picked up some strawberries and apple turnovers and then walked back to our event and my wife and had our 'lunch'.

THINGS WERE RATHER SLOW until around 1:30pm. There were a lot of people clammoring around the amphitheatre area watching the entertainment, which wasn't really too bad. They had a good turnout and there were people milling about the 17 vendor booths, situated along a circular cement path. My booth appeared to be somewhat obscure and really could not be seen from the opposite side. Nice that we had real bathrooms behind us inside the building. Both for our convenience and also people walked by our booth as they headed for the building and we did get some purchases from that.

DUDE PUTS ON HAIRY HAT AND PROCEEDS TO TAKE PICTURE OF HIMSELF.  Usually I would jump up and put a stop to it but he looked so idiotic in doing so and I was in desperate need of entertainment. However, his 7-yr old daughter than put on one of our hats and took a parasol and began posing for him. "Enough is enough" I told him. "Please put our things down and stop taking pictures. This is ridiculous."

THE SAME OL BULL. I had a good number of people entering the park from a path behind my booth. Little kid's come running to my booth and look at my things. "Oh mommy, mommy, I want this," I would hear many of them say as they grabbed my gators, snakes, swords, bubble guns, etc. "Now, Mortimer, we just got here and I want you to walk around and see if there is anything else you want. After we walk around if you still want that, then you can have it."   %(##(#)%)#ugh. Time after time, over and over, I hear that. "Come on mommy, pleeeeeaase. I really like that. Come on pleeeease." "Now what did I just tell you. Let's walk around." I look at them. "You don't want anything else," and it's off they go.

"CAN YOU BREAK A HUNDRED?" was the question the lady asked as she pulled out the Franklin and handed it over to me to pay for her husband's new hat. "Oh yes," I said to her. I took the $100 bill and held it up to the sky to look for the hologram on the right hand side. "I'm just checking to make sure it's real," I told her. "I don't know what the hell they look for on here." We all laughed. "I guess that if you don't take off running, then it's real." Once again we laughed.



SALES WERE SPORADIC THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON as people rushed for the vendor booths after each set of performances. There would be a long period of utter silence near our booth and then there would be 10-12 people surrounding us. It was like that until around 4:00 at which time many people were clustered around the amphitheatre to hear the results of the cook off. Dead during that time and we didn't pick up many sales until we left. We began packing around 5:15 when there were only a few dozen people sighted up on the grassy knoll near us.

I SPOTTED A VERY MYSTERIOUS puddle to the left of my canopy and that can only be one thing. There were a number of dogs who visited my booth. I wish I had a picture of this one I saw. A lady with frizzy long blond hair walks up to my booth holding her pooch in her arms. I looked over at the dog and it had sort of long white hair and looked almost the same as the lady carrying it. Amazing. I wish I would have taken a shot of the two of them. Nice family though, they made some good purchases from us.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST I'd like to give props to the Chamber of Commerce and others associated with this event. They did a good job. For a first-time event, they did excellent. I had my doubts when I saw the set up of everything, but they brought out good crowds and they gave the public something very enjoyable. I'm impressed. Thank you Michelle and everybody and anybody connected with the event.

I GUESS THAT THE RVers spend 2-3 nights camped out in the parking lot. What do they do? Sit around the camp fire all night long telling BBQ jokes? Heyyyy Jethro, have you heard this one?

A woman was standing before the bedroom mirror, admiring herself in her expensive new outfit. She posed this way and that. Her husband, looking with disinterest, remarked; "Your bum is the size of a 3-burner barbeque!"
Later that evening, tucked up cozy in bed, he leant over, tapped her on the shoulder, and asked hopefully; "How about it?" She replied "It's hardly worth lighting the Barby for half a sausage now is it?!!"

Click here to read Gilroy Dispatch article on this event

THE LIGHTER SIDE



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