Barbeque Festival up in smoke

Williams Chamber Board members vote to cancel annual competition after losing $2,542 last year

WILLIAMS, Ariz. - After five years of losing money on the Northern Arizona Barbeque Festival, the Williams-Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce has decided to call off this year's event.

With the festival losing $2,542 last year, the Chamber Board of Directors voted at the end of January to pay the $1,875 already committed to the event and cancel it this year, according to Chamber Board President Jerry Anthony.

"The bottom line was we lost a fair amount of money last year and we projected to lose about the same amount this year," he said. "So we just said 'Hey, it makes more sense to pull the plug now than to spend another X thousands of dollars to put it on and lose money.'"

This year's barbeque festival was scheduled for June 19-20 in the Williams Visitor Center parking lot. More than 30 teams have typically competed in the Northern Arizona Barbeque Festival to try to make the best ribs, brisket, pork, chicken and dessert. The Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) sanctioned the event.

Kerry-Lynn Moede, the chamber's events oversight committee chairperson, said although the barbeque festival was a fun event, it was also cost prohibitive.

"It's very expensive to have a sanctioned event because you have to provide prize money to the tune of $10,000, and that's in addition to all of the other expenses that you normally have with an event anyway such as the fencing, the porta potties, the rentals..." she said. "Then you have to pay for travel for the judges, you have to house the judges, you have to pay somebody from the KCBS to come and run your judging, that's almost $3,000 right there in addition to the $10,000 for prize money."

In the past, people have complained that the event competed with local restaurants and that the barbeque samples were overpriced for the amount of food they received.

However, Anthony said the driving factor in the cancellation was budget, and that chamber needs to make money on its events so it can become more self-sufficient.

"I'm trying to reposition our thinking processes for the chamber," he said. "The chamber is a business. Yes we're a nonprofit, but we're still a business. So I'm trying to get us to think more like a business."

Arlie Bragg served as the coordinator of the Northern Arizona Barbeque Festival, and also coordinates several similar events across the country.

"This is the first time I've ever had an event that was six years old that quit doing it," he said. "It's a real big disappointment amongst all the teams and the judges. I already had all the judges for the event and teams were starting to pay. It was some new teams, so we would have probably had our biggest barbeque cookoff ever."

After he heard that the chamber was losing money on the event, Bragg said he looked for ways to cut costs. He found some savings in the trophy budget and also agreed to cut the prize money by $2,000, but the chamber still decided to cancel the event.

"They had paid me half of my fee and they'd paid the sanctioning fee, so in reality they lost almost as much money by canceling it as they would have if they had went ahead and did it this year," he said.

In addition, Bragg said the economic impact the barbeque festival would have brought to Williams would have offset the chamber's loss.

"If you're just losing $2,000 to $3,000, in reality by not having it you're probably losing $25,000 to $30,000," he said. "You got hotel rooms, you got gas, you got people going to the Grand Canyon, you got people buying stuff in the shops there and eating out three meals a day at all the restaurants. If you got 40 barbeque teams times three or four people, that's 160 people, and 160 people can spend a lot of money."

However, Bragg said he understood the financing challenges and added that he'd be glad to bring the event back in the future if the chamber was interested.

Alternative events

With the cancellation of the Northern Arizona Barbeque Festival, the chamber has organized the Williams "Wild" West Weekend June 19-21 to take place in conjunction with the Arizona Cowpunchers Reunion Rodeo, Grand Canyon Railway's Williams Train Days, and the Harley Davidson Raven Run.

The chamber's portion of the event will include food and retail vendors and entertainment in the Visitor Center parking lot. Country and rock band Saguaro Sunset, salsa dancers, ballet folklorico dancers and Native American dancers are all scheduled to perform.

In addition, the chamber plans to have chuck wagon cooks participate as one of their vendors to sell food and talk about their history.

"A lot of people said they liked Rendezvous Days in the (chamber events survey)," Moede said. "So my theory is anything I can bring in that has a historical western type flavor will be appreciated by those people."

With the chamber putting on the so-called Party on the Plaza themselves, organizers say it will be less expensive to run than the barbeque festival.

The chamber projects costs for supplies, entertainment, advertising and food and liquor licenses for the event to come out to about $4,075. With about 30 vendor spots, beverage sales and sponsorships, the chamber expects to make $9,250. That brings the total projected net income for the event to $5,175.

"We're thinking that instead of having a significant loss we're going to have a fairly significant gain," Anthony said.

Moede said the chamber board is trying to work together with other event organizers to create the best experience for visitors during that weekend.

"We're having it Friday and Saturday only so that the advertising will then encourage anybody who's in town to take advantage of the local shops on Sunday," she said. "The way we're doing the press release is trying to lay out for people what's going on in the whole town. It's not just our thing, it's what's going on everywhere and encouraging people to take part in everything."

Moede added that she is excited to help put on the event for locals and visitors alike.

"We're definitely trying to make it be for everybody, be very family friendly, and be very upbeat and fun," she said.

More information about chamber events is available at (928) 635-0273.