Chili Cook Off Sign Up Sheet (free, online)

How to set it up

A chili cook-off has two lists: the cooks and everyone else. Cap the entries at a number your tables and your crowd can taste, usually eight to fifteen, and give each cook a numbered spot. Then fill in the rest with counts: cornbread, the toppings bar, drinks, tasting cups and spoons, a few judges who aren't cooking, and the people who plug in the slow cookers and wash them afterward.

The mistake is an open sheet where nine people sign up to bring chili and nobody brings cornbread. Counts per row fix it; when the entries fill, the next person sees only what's still open. One tip: ask each cook to write their chili's name and heat level at signup so you can print the ballot straight from the list.

Questions people ask

How do we collect the chili names for the ballot?

Add a text question at signup, 'Name of your chili and heat level', and make it required for entries. The list of answers is your ballot; print it from the page the morning of.

What if more than twelve people want to enter?

The entry row closes at twelve and the next person joins the waitlist. If a cook drops out through their cancel link, the first person waiting gets the spot by email. Or raise the count if you have the tables.

Can we run this every year?

Yes. Copy the page next fall, move the date, and email everyone from this year's page. Last year's cooks get the first look at the entry spots.

Why not a paper sheet or a Google Form?

A paper sheet lives in one place and fills up with the first people who walk past it. A Google Form takes forty signups for a row that needed two, and you find out in the spreadsheet. An online sign-up sheet closes each row when it's covered, sends a reminder the day before, and gives every person a link to cancel so the spot reopens. See the side-by-side with Google Forms.