Rock n Rib BBQ Festival

New Cooking Stage is a Delicious Addition

The 2011 Rock ‘n Rib Festival presented by Rib Crib BBQ & Grill welcomed 41,024 visitors to Downtown Tulsa for championship barbecue from seven award-winning pitmasters from across the nation. The four-day festival also featured live music from 17 bands, beer and barbeque, a children’s play area, free mechanical bull rides, and the new Curtis Culinary Stage.

The Curtis Culinary Stage

Our client, Curtis Restaurant Supply, was invited to sponsor a new cooking stage attraction at the Rock n Rib BBQ Festival. The new Curtis Culinary Stage was located near festival entrance and featured live cooking demonstrations from national award-winning pitmasters and local celebrity chefs. SMG, the BOK Center management company, is a client of Curtis Restaurant Supply, and owners David Hillin and Jay Gulick were happy to participate in the event as a thank you to SMG for their continued business and support. Secondly, this was an opportunity to gain exposure to an untapped Curtis market segment, the general public.

The cooking stage was a new attraction to the festival so there wasn’t any rules, processes or plans. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on who you ask. If you ask me, it was a very good thing. The SMG/BOK center event personnel were creative, enthusiastic, and flexible. Together, we were able to create a successful first time event that we were able to learned from to make the next year even more successful.

The BOK Center handled the festival promotion with a multitude of media. However, we added to the promotion by partnering with www.TulsaFood.com to run several fun contests and chances to win some cool kitchen goodies and prizes. The contest information was cross-promoted on the Curtis website, blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as Tulsa Food’s website, blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, beginning the week of September 12th. Curtis gained exposure as well as 120 new Facebook fans.

Curtis owner, David Hillin, was one of 10 judges determining the winner of the rib competition from all the championship vendors. He rated the ribs on different components like taste, texture, and sauce. It was a tough job but someone had to do it!

One of the greatest challenges was lining up the chefs to conduct the cooking demonstrations.  Local Curtis clients were recruited as well as the national pitmasters.  The chefs were all very gracious and excited to be included in the event. However, there were two chefs that dropped out at the last minute. We were able to find replacements by taking advatanage of the onsite pitmasters.

Besides the tornado evacuation on Saturday night, our client was pleased with the exposure to an untapped market demographic and to be able to give back to their client, SMG / BOK Center.

STAGE EVENTS SCHEDULE

Thursday, September 15

6:30pm – BBQ 101: How to choose the Right Meat – Pitmaster Pat Nelson of Big Boned BBQ Company
7:30pm – BBQ 101: Preparing Award-winning Pulled Pork – Pitmistress Donna Rice of Desperado’s BBQ
8:30pm – BBQ 101: How to Properly Use and Apply Dry Rub Like a Pro – Pitmaster Jon Bigalk of Willingham’s BBQ

Friday, September 16
5:30pm – Tasty Sides: Local celebrity chef demo – Chef Zane Kelley of Main Street Tavern
6:30pm – Competition Secrets: How to make award winning ribs – Pitmaster Brandon Manly of RibCrib
7:30pm – Gourmet Grilling: Peach-Chipotle Barbecued Salmon & Beef Brisket “Parfait”- Chef Devin Levine of BOK Center
8:30pm – Grilled Pizza: Local celebrity chef demo – Chef Cody Stell of In The Raw

Saturday, September 17
5:30pm – BBQ 101: – Texas-Style BBQ and Grilling Tips- Pitmaster Dallas Green of Cowboys BBQ Company
6:30pm – Competition Secrets: How to make award winning brisket – Pitmaster Brandon Manly of RibCrib
7:30pm – Cool the Heat: How to Make a Limonana and other BBQ Drinks – Bartender Stuart Stewart of Cosmo Cafe
8:30pm – Competition Secrets: Pitmaster Dan Johnson, Johnson BBQ, Chesapeake, VA

Sunday, September 18
12:30PM – KidsQ: Cooking with Remmi, the culinary kid – Chef Remmi Smith

Serve, Don’t Stress

Here is today’s e-News from Steve Scanlon’s blog, Reality and Hope. I really enjoy his posts. Make sure to click the link at the bottom of this article and subscribe to his e-Newsletter.

Enjoy!
Debra

Serve, Don’t Stress

You wouldn’t have to look very far – perhaps no farther than the mirror – to find someone who claims they are stressed. Certainly there are levels of stress, from mild concern to tied-up-in-knots, and everyone we know has some form of it at some point. Truthfully, many people fall beyond the tied-up-in-knots category.

If you have been reading my blog, you know I am no fan of inane advice about deep concepts. Thus, when I hear people say things like “just don’t stress,” I get stressed. How’s that for irony?

As a coach, I have not seen such simplistic advice work well for anyone, and I will not offer such fodder. What I hope to convey is really two-fold:

1) Stress is a choice.
2) There is a response that will get us back on track quickly.

Stress is a choice – it is our response to what is happening around us. But when we say that we are stressed, we often abdicate that choice to our circumstances. Let’s change our language to something more fitting to reality. “I am choosing stress” would be more accurate than “I am stressed.”

If we can believe through the choice of our words that an emotional response is indeed of our making, then we can believe that we can choose another emotion, one that is more in line with our desired end result.

Once you have decided that stress is a choice, you can respond by choosing to serve someone else.

Now, I could go on and on about the known physical byproducts of leading a high-stress life. But another unseen result is that when we are stressed we simply are not as capable of serving others. Stress causes a funky form of selfishness – mostly because of how much mental energy goes into feeding it.

If you are feeling stress, remember in the moment that it is your choice. Then, go quickly and serve someone else. These two actions may save your life in the long run.

Have a great week,

Coach Steve

Here’s the link to the article

Customer Service via Twitter & Facebook?

Social media is a two way street.  It is a great way to get information and news out to people you want but it’s also good customer service.  How does it make you feel when someone says something nice about you? Pretty great, right? And you remember the compliment. In fact, you will probably remember the compliment if you ever need something in the future….

Facebook business pages (or fan pages) make quick testimonials easy.  By “friend-ing” someone you can be up on their latest news and they are up on your latest news. You can also give them an occasional “shout-out” to let them know you are #1 thinking of them, #2 care about their business, #3 are interested in a long-term relationship, because you are going the extra mile to make their business a success.

So be a friend (Facebook) or follow (Twitter) your customers today.  Then write something to uplift and promote their business.  They will appreciate the kind words, and appreciate you for doing it.