2009 Memphis in May BBQ Festival

[TN_Mike]

Well, another Memphis in May World Championship BBQ Festival has come and gone. And I could not be happier that it is over!

Working at a Memphis TV station, I have to be down there for 3 or 4 days at our lot doing remote shows and other broadcasts. It's a lot of over time and a good paycheck but man am I ever glad when it is over.

This year we had all the weather we could handle. Heat/sun, Clouds and rain (torrential rain at one point), and every day there was wind, and then on Saturday it was very windy (30 mph) cloudy and the high was about 58 degrees! And, since the city in their infinite wisdom dumped tons and tons of sand on Tom Lee Park to combat the mud, the wind picked it up and blew it into everything!

All in all, this year kind of sucked. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as past years and I didn't enjoy those too much. Anyway, here are a few pics of our set up (some people find this behind the scenes of the TV pics interesting) and the mostly drunk and belligerent crowds.


The satellite truck and some of the cable runs..


Our scaffolding "stage" where we did the broadcasts. We do these up there for the view of the park and to stay above the drunks yelling at the talent during the shows.


One of our live trucks...


More of the compound, with the "facilities"...


Shot from up on the scaffolding stage looking South...


Looking North...


A boat on the river....a nice boat....


Behind the scenes, one of our camera guys, Clint, queuing the talent that they are up.


The control room in the trailer. Audio board on the left, on air monitor and the switcher and camera monitors. It's bare bones on the road...

365 days until the next one.....not long enough.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[grady]

Looks like a lot of work. The river pic looks relaxing.

Hope you made enough to fund some fun purchases.

[PNUT]

Did you sample all of the BBQ entries ?

[retsupt99]

Looks like a good time, but it's always the drunks who spoil it.

Is the Mississippi pretty poluted there?

[motorhed66]

Always wanted to go to Memphis in May BBQ contest...I fancy myself an OK BBQer...would like to sample some world class stuff...but big drunk crowds are not high on the list to compete with on vacation