Cook's Registration at the GA Mt. Eggfest

Well, before people start thinking we’re trying to stiff anyone by putting on this eggfest, let me explain a couple of things.

First, this fest is a fundraiser for the GA Mt. Fair which, in recent years, has teetered on the brink of closing. This Fair is a huge draw and economic boost for our community, which is also suffering due to the economy the past several years......So, without this Fair functioning, most of the businesses in our county would likely fold. There’re a lot of activities and events going on at the Fair during the year besides this eggfest.

Second, in regard to the taster’s fee, I wanted to discontinue the cook’s fee and I felt this would be a good way to offset that loss for the Fair, so I raised the fee from $20.00 to $25.00, which I feel is not out of line with any of the other major fests.........the Sunshine State fest charged tasters $35.00 and the Eggtoberfest was $45.00, to name a couple. Neither of these donated the proceeds to a charity and I didn’t hear anyone questioning where the proceeds went.

I’ve cooked at over 30 eggfests the past 10 years or so, in San Francisco, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Omaha, Oklahoma City and Denver and it always irked me a little to have to pay to cook, but, it wasn’t a game changer and I figured the organizers had a good reason for doing this other than “greed”. 

An eggfest of this size is a huge undertaking, not to mention costly, and it gets more costly every year.

Third (I know I said a “couple” of things), in regard to the cook’s goody bags this year, I’ll be the first to admit we made a very bad call on the contents therein. It’s becoming nearly impossible to get sponsors to continue to donate year after year items for these cook’s bags. When you tell them you need 125-150 bottles of bbq sauce or rubs, that’s a big hurdle for them and after a couple of years they stop answering your correspondence altogether. If any of you think you can get sponsors to donate this many items every year I’d be happy to hear from you. 

Those t-shirts that were included this year from other events proved to be a big mistake and I apologize profusely for this..........we didn’t have much to put in the bags.......‘nuff said! 

If any of you received one of these shirts and had no use for it, please come and see me next year at the fest and I’ll give you a 2017 GA Mt. Eggfest t-shirt with my compliments. 

For your information, we don’t charge the vendors anything for being here. We give them a covered booth free of charge and we ask them to donate something for the cook’s drawing in exchange. It adds a lot to the experience of all the attendees to have a variety of vendors here so they can see and feel and sample a lot of theme-related items so, consequently, we encourage them to come. This is also a good platform for vendors to introduce new products. Smokeware (formerly Eggware) had their coming out with their stainless caps here in 2013 and you see what that turned in to..!

Also, in case you’re wondering, I receive no compensation for organizing this eggfest. I do it for the community in which I’m part of and I do it for all you eggheads! I was teetering on retirement after this year, but, when I see the fun everyone is having and the numerous compliments from so many, I guess I’m not ready to walk away quite yet.

We’re always looking to find new and different things to present you and they don’t always turn out quite like we’d envisioned.......

But, most times they do turn out........this year was proof of that with the presence of star chef Linkie Marais and giving out 5 new MiniMax eggs in the cook’s drawing. How many eggfests do that?