After a three-year experiment that saw the No Bull BBQ Cookoff take place at two different locations in town, the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce canceled the event this year.
The cookoff has taken place the last three years in Morgan Hill in early May, with dozens of barbecuing teams traveling from all over the state to compete in the officially sanctioned cookoff each year. The 2010 and 2011 events took place at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center. Last year, it was held at the Outdoor Sports Center, where the Gilroy-based Huminie’s Hogalicious team won the top prize.
Chamber board members determined the event was no longer financially viable, Chamber board chair Rich Firato said.
The event “lost money last year,” Firato said. “That’s a very difficult event to pull off. It’s very challenging for the promoters.”
While the competition became the largest such cookoff on the West Coast in 2011, with 66 teams competing in Morgan Hill, the field dropped to about 45 competitors last year.
Firato said organizers heard numerous complaints about last year’s venue from cookoff attendees. The cookoff, which also featured live entertainment, was held in a dirt and gravel parking area at the OSC on Condit Road, and some who attended said the site was too dusty and exposed to the sun.
Attendees also complained each of the three years about the lack of food for sale available for public consumption. Organizers offered “tasting tickets” to the crowd, which they could purchase to gain a few samples from individual competitors in order to determine the annual “people’s choice” winners. However, some complained that most of the teams offering such samples ran out early, leaving patrons with unredeemable tickets they already paid for.
Other upcoming Chamber events and fundraisers are the summertime Friday Night Music Series (details of which are likely to be announced in the coming weeks) and the early-fall Taste of Morgan Hill food, art and music festival.
