One of the highly-awaited events in Kansas City is the annual American Royal Barbeque. This four-day event is held during the first week of October, and is the ultimate event for barbeque aficionados. It also hosts the largest barbeque contest in the world, with over 550 teams competing in various categories. First up is the Sauce Contest, followed by the Masterpiece Invitational Meat Contest, the KC Open Sides Contest, the Junior World Series of Barbeque contest, and finally, the KC Open Meat contest.

What’s interesting about professional BBQ contests are some of their rules. James Oliver Cury, who judged in one, writes about these curious regulations in his article for Yahoo! Food: