[Lee]

Just to be clear, this is not, and has not ever been about finances.
For most years we've been sufficiently compensated to cover the expenses that I or others have had to incur.
People have been quite generous on that front.

This is about people committing to the event and bringing tomatoes
to the event.
One year I had folks "pre-register" for the event. They had to tell me
how many were coming and if they were planning to bring tomatoes.
For that event, I expected 150+ people with maybe 25 bringing tomatoes.
Maybe 110 showed up with about 10~15 bringing tomatoes. If one
unexpected individual hadn't come with about 40% of the total tomatoes, we would have had very few for folks to taste.

Also, noet that the majority of folks that attend are not members here.
They are mostly customers of Craig's tomato seedlings or others who've
found out about the event from local magazines, etc....
Which is why you haven't heard very many speak out about it on this site.

While nothing is for certain, this year's event (if held) will not be as
we've held them before.

Lee