SW Missouri Eggfest

How far away is this fest for you Dan?

Nixa is located six miles south of Springfield Mo and 30 miles north of Branson, Mo on Highway 160, just four miles west of US Highway 65.  The crossroads of the Ozarks.

Photo Egg said:

RRP said:

WOW have times ever changed! “Taster” tickets purchased now are $30, but later $35!  

I, along with many older farts, cooked at many eggfests for years and STUPIDLY did it for the fun of it and STUPIDLY paid for our own food, though the eggs and lump were provided by the sponsoring BGE dealers.

BTW where is Nixa, MO? (Other than saying it is in SW MO?) Being a MO boy myself and graduating from UCM in Warrensburg then Nixa is still unfamiliar to me. 

It used to be just Eggheads cooking. Now they want/expect teams. Dealers have turned this into more of a competitive cooking tournament. In the past it was a friend making, teaching/learning experience between cooks and tasters. 

I'm not an ol' timer here as such, and even I miss those times. 

RRP said:

Photo Egg said:

RRP said:

WOW have times ever changed! “Taster” tickets purchased now are $30, but later $35!  

I, along with many older farts, cooked at many eggfests for years and STUPIDLY did it for the fun of it and STUPIDLY paid for our own food, though the eggs and lump were provided by the sponsoring BGE dealers.

BTW where is Nixa, MO? (Other than saying it is in SW MO?) Being a MO boy myself and graduating from UCM in Warrensburg then Nixa is still unfamiliar to me. 

It used to be just Eggheads cooking. Now they want/expect teams. Dealers have turned this into more of a competitive cooking tournament. In the past it was a friend making, teaching/learning experience between cooks and tasters. 

I'm trying to be as careful as I can be to tiptoe around this corporate supported forum...but just for newbies who don't understand how BGE founder named Ed Fisher became the powerhouse it is today...Those thousands of us over the years participated in these self - supported EGGfests to spread the BGE "GOSPEL"! (Meaning we paid for our own food that we cooked and served to these "tasters" for which THEY never paid jack squat.) Why??? I think we were caught up in those "friendly times"! 

Yes - we did that as we loved the BGE, what it meant to us, and yes, it DID build the value of the brand so that Fisher could sell the company and quietly move into retirement somewhere!

Translation: eggfests used to be fun social events, now they’re money grabs 

If they’re charging $35/taster and the cooks are paying their own way and maybe paying to cook to boot, it’s a fvcking money grab. End of story. 

theyolksonyou said:

If they’re charging $35/taster and the cooks are paying their own way and maybe paying to cook to boot, it’s a fvcking money grab. End of story. 

It’s kind of a tight rope walk. Charging/selling tickets for tasters vs free open to the public. But $35 seems excessive but includes a t-shirt. (That I would have no use for) The last couple Eggfests that I cooked at that were open to public at no charge was a family feeding circus. The events were highly advertised by the dealers as free food event. Dealers had no concerns for the cooks and supplied none of the food or serving supplies. Carloads of people showed up wanting, expecting and complaining about only getting taster samples. Dealers even tried to mandate the minimal amount of samples each cook was to hand out. We have attended a couple Eggfests where the dealers charged tasters and all the money went to local charity. Got rid of the freeloaders and gave money to charity. Much respect to the old days and many of the old dealers who were ran off by new corporate rules.

There is a pretty easy way (in my opinion) to handle the money for Eggfests and address concerns of money grabs: be transparent with the budget.  Put up on a website somewhere listing all of the money that comes in (from ticket sales) and detail all expenses.  Of course someone can still fudge things but it’s a lot harder to do that when things can be checked independently.  

RRP said:

MasterC said:

I cook in a fest here and it's a friendly affair. No competition in money just pride in what we cook(competition between cooks for sure) but we do it for fun. Yes we pay for our food and they might pay us from gate admissions, but that's not the point. We love doing it. Not bad though this year, over 1000 at 15 a head pretty sweet

Cool! So 1,000 x $15 = $15K…pretty impressive! So how much did YOU receive to cover YOUR  food costs?

BTW any idea how much your dealer made selling those used eggs, plus NEW eggs, plus ALL the multiple eggcesserories? After alll…any Eggfest that drew in 1,000 people paying $15 was no mom and pop eggfest which for your information is what sold the BGE to this ceramic cooker to the USA market. 

$250 more than I expected. I knew going in that it will cost me money and I'm cool with that. I do this for the camaraderie with Eggheads I've known for years and the new ones I meet each year. 
And I do admit when someone you don't know says "that's the best thing I've tried" it makes my day

I was given 250 dollars at the end of the day to reimburse me. I was not expecting that