No two ways about it, the American Royal is on the ropes…
Not only are its bread and butter horse and livestock shows drawing infinitesimally small crowds, the vaunted World Series of Barbecue is getting its ass handed to it but the good people of Memphis, Tennessee.
Forget for a moment how dumb it would be to plow tens of millions of dollars into a new, smaller venue for an antiquated event that barely draws flies. One of Kansas City’s most prized possessions – the bragging rights to being BBQ Capital of the World – is on the line and in trouble.
That’s because Memphis in May is blowing our World Series away.
Example: USA Today crowned Memphis’ World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest last year as best of the best over KC’s.
Meanwhile, the jury’s still out on what moving the American Royal’s BBQ contest to Arrowhead Stadium will actually mean other than egress and more parking. But it had better include some killer concert action if it hopes to even begin to catch Memphis.
No more all-girl Kiss cover bands. Heck, Kiss themselves wouldn’t come close to what Memphis is offering – a world class, month long month celebration.
This year’s Memphis in May lineup dwarfs not just the American Royal’s feeble lineup, it blows away the combined efforts of everything combined that radio station The Buzz puts together over the course of an entire year
Check out a small sampling of this year’s acts:
Lenny Kravitz, Ed Sheeran, Paramore, The Avett Brothers, John Fogerty, Wilco, Five Finger Death Punch, Hozier, The Flaming Lips, Cage the Elephant, Ryan Adams, Pixies, St. Vincent, Band of Horses, Rise Against, Flogging Molly, George Clinton & Parliament, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Of Mice & men, Bela Fleck, Spin Doctors, Soul Asylum, Big Head Todd, Robert Randolph, Bettye Layette, Ana Popovic, Alejandro Escovedo and Savoy Brown.
Oh yeah, and a gaggle of killer blues artists.
Speaking of which, Memphis long ago reclaimed the undisputed ownership of being the blues music capital of the country that Kansas City had challenged for in the 1980s and 1990s with clubs like the Grand Emporium and the Kansas City Blues & Jazz Festival.
I’m not going to tell you Memphis has better barbecue than KC, because I’m biased. I will tell you though that they certainly have every right to make that claim.
And unless somebody wrests KC’s BBQ contest from the incapable hands of the horse show lovers at the American Royal our World Series is gonna turn into a Wild Card game.
Even Memphis’ attitude smokes KC’s.
“Imagine grown men dressed in tutus and snouts, parading around the stage and ‘singing’ familiar songs with barbecue-infused lyrics involving pork, grilling and more. It’s an event you have to see to believe.”
Try finding a description like that on the American Royal website.
The $64 million Question:
Will the American Royal take advantage of teaming with the Chiefs to offer a slate of top notch entertainment at Arrowhead to compete with Memphis?
Frankly, that’s hard to imagine, given the calibre of this year’s Memphis in May lineup, which is a three stage affair set in a riverfront park overlooking the Mighty Mississippi.
No way bumping about a massive, sterile parking lot and clambering in and out of an 80,000 seat NFL stadium can come close.
To their credit, the American Royal seems to recognize that.
“Please be assured that even though we are moving, we are working hard to maintain the character of the event. We are a BBQ competition first and foremost. Our most important constituency is the hard-core BBQ competitor. We will maintain the integrity of our competition and support our competitors above all. We will also ensure the event maintains the quirky, intimate feel that we all love about the West Bottoms space. We have lots of fun plans in the works that we think you’re going to love.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the American Royal and Chiefs attempt to maintain “the quirky, intimate feel” of the West Bottoms in a parking lot off Interstate 70.
Guess we’ll find out.
Not surprised about either Memphis or the old stick-in-the-muds at the Royal.
Nor do I care any more; I dropped the Royal several years back like a polonium filled potato when I got an invite to judge at The Jack and never looked back. The Jack makes the Royal look amateurish.
And realistically, what “quirky, intimate feel” does Arrowhead have that could even approach the Beale Street scene?
What a joke.
being the “bar b q ” capital of anything is jut a bunch of b.s.
who caresoutside of kc or maybe Memphis.
build the hotel…bring in conventions…move the royal bar b q to
arrowhead….weekend of a big gam….have a concert there
maybe saturdy night ….and lets get over trying to be a bunch
of stupid beef and rib eaters.
who cares? Its just a food. Ever flown to boston for seafood? NO…
mexico for real Mexican food….no!
so we have anincredible revitalitzation of kcging on…
Lane 4 is redoing 4 centers..
Metcalf south…brookridge…and meadowbrook are changing to mixed
usage…
135th is a mecca of an area……get glaze to bring in soe real comedians
instead of these old worn out retreads….
151st if stating to explode….
we’ve got p and l..crossroads…the chiefs should be great and the royalsare on
fire…yet hearne and the rest of his old man band are still concerned
with the old America royals bar b q.
move over hearne…..lets let the peope of kc with mony mess with it…
and you can deal with your hometown of Lawrence (speaking of falling apart…
what a mess that is)…and lets stop the bar b q image and start becoming te
greatest city in the Midwest.
Hearne…move over…..the old ideas are stale and about 30 years too late!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I basically agree, H….
Except with the part that let the people with money sort things out.
They are the ones trying to double down on the american royal at the expense of taxpayers.
As for the BBQ hype, if you can it together promotion as killer as Memphis has, I say go for it.
Otherwise, who really cares.
I think the American Royal is basically cooked and the bbq contest is hanging on by the skin of its you-know-what.
So what if 500 teams come here to hang out in a boring parking lot and see who takes home 30 grand?
I think the romance novel convention coming here was far sexier
Senator Rand Paul is standing for American freedom and liberty. Support his filibuster of the Patriot Act, because the Act is anything but patriotic. Don’t trade your freedoms because of fear. Stand with Rand.
now you talk….where were yu when repubs crammed it thru congress?
rand is like custer at his final battle….he’s a big nothing just like daddy.
I don’t know about FreedomRing but I was in high school in 01. Just trying to clean up the mess you Sissy’s created because you all were afraid of your own shadows and gave away our Constitution
What does the Beale Street Music Festival music lineup have to do with the BBQ contest? They are two different events. If you want to compare American Royal BBQ and World Championship BBQ Cooking Contest and the entertainment that surrounds those events – that’s one thing, but don’t stack the other event on top of it. If you are going to do that, then toss in Rockfest as well.
Yea, it wasn’t really about BBQ. Memphis has a good music scene? No kidding.
The lineup Memphis in May offers up goes way beyond Memphis having a music scene…
It’s the product of careful, smart planning and excellent execution.
Beale Street is fun – it blows Westport AND Power & Light combined away, but I’ve spent a lot of time in that part of the south and Kansas City far and away eats Memphis’ lunch in virtually every other way imaginable, Darla.
What this really illustrates is how poorly the American Royal has been run. And now that they’re on the verge of extinction, they want taxpayers to throw money at them.
Good money after bad, sadly
The Memphis BBQ Contest is an integral part of the Memphis in May celebration…
It’s not Rockfest in May and then five months later the World Series of BBQ in October.
And remember what they say about, location, location, location?
It’s not buried in the stockyards, with little or nothing else around and awful ingress issues, it’s in a park right by the river that you enter just of Beale Street, which is the Memphis equivalent of Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
The American Royal spreads out its events over a month or longer as well.
Parade, livestock and horse shows BBQ
if you toss in rockefest add:
renaissance festival
party cove
independence settlers day
st. pats day parades
moonshine days in branson
royals opnng day
octoberfest in Hermann
I mean they’re all bigevents….even Lenexa bar b q……and Hearne’s 65th birthday!!!!!
Lenny Kravitz and George Clinton. Is this a pot party or a BBQ contest?
Neither; it’s Homecoming.
; ‘ )
Memphis is the weed capital?
Thirty year ago, the Board of the Americn Royal decided that its average age was way past Social Security, so to bring in new blood, they recruited young professionals. Their management training was “sell tickets” and when you’ve sold a bunch, we’ll find something else for you to do. Today, those who sold tickets, social security recipients, themselves, would like to recruit youth to “sell tickets”.
Every western show has seen its problems. In the fall of 1970 the Great Western Stock show in Denver crowned its grand national Angus bull, only to find it was a dyed Charolais.
The key is the term who cares? The American Royal originally was a Hereford show, and yes we miss the Hereford in the lobby of Traders National Bank downtown. We even miss Traders Bank. I won a contest of guessing the weight of the steer, among grand children, because I guessed closest based on the winner I had seen on a television show, “Queen For a Day”. The winner and the steer both appeared to be the same size.
The death of the Royal started years ago with the loss of the FFA Convention. On my year out of college, I “worked the convention” for the owner of XL Sundries downtown.
That’s not why the Royal is dying. The Royal is dying because most BOTARS do not know the front of a horse from the back of it. Some do not even know that the AR in the name is American Royal. The Royal is dying because the people who go downtown to the Power and Light could care less about the city’s history. The Royal is dying because the cattle industry is no longer grass fed beef, raised on local ranches. It’s feed lots. Yes, there are still cowboys, but they are not our city fathers. There was a time when there was a Hallmark farm, a Christopher spread, a Dominick ranch. There are some of us who remember. Some of us know about rounding up cattle Spring and Fall, feeding, and taking care of horses. Some of us still own a horse or two. That is the death of the Royal.
That bull came from my grandfather’s brother’s herd. Grandpa was an Angus man and Uncle Porter was a Hereford man. They produced some of the best Baldies in the region.
Your take is spot on. Add in the Big Time Operators are plowing the corn-and-soybean ghetto in the Heartlands and livestock isn’t as common. Integrators have eliminated hogs from being a quick in-and-out business.
At the Pennsylvania Farm Show they routinely spray paint cattle to boost their look. A champion lamb at the Louisville show will be sold and then basically starved for the remainder of the show circuit.
Livestock shows and their animals have nothing to do with raising animals for the market. Not anymore.
I went to the contest the first year I returned to KC. It was pretty limp and you weren’t allowed to sample from the contestants. And nothing much going on otherwise than watching people cook.
Maybe if someone tried something original rather than just trying to catch up with the last fad?
Trying to gussy up barbecue reminds me of Philadelphia’s attempt to make the cheesesteak haute cuisine.
Both are about taking tough cuts of meat and making them edible.
Nice take, Cowboy…
And leave us not forget one of the Cowtown’s last, great hurrahs – in terms of our ag legacy anyway – Mike Murphy’s Cattle Drive downtown.
Great history lesson, Cowboy. Excel Sundries, Traders Bank, Hall/Christopher/Dominick ( you missed Sutherland) land. Them was the days!! Spent a lot of good times inside Excel Sundries, NW corner of 12th & Wyandotte.
Doing what? Looking at girlie magazines and answering the eternal question?