Iowa State Fair - World Record Corn Dog Chomp!

Bergers attend record setting fair.
The Berger family helped set a World Record at the Iowa State Fair last week -- sort of. After a very early departure (1:00 a.m.), we arrived in Des Moines early in the morning. We started off with a bang during what was called a "record-setting chomp" durig the opening ceremonies of the fair. The ‘Corndog Chomp,’ set a record for the most people simultaneously eating corndogs. More than 10,000 people packed the Grandstand for the event, with approximately 8,000 of them getting a corndog. Unfortunately, even though we followed all the rules, we did not get any of the dogs!

Not eating a corndog!
The kids are a little disappointed.

Even though we followed the rules, got a number, got a seat, and according to "Van and Bonnie" of WHO radio [my favorite station from my Iowa days], every server is assigned certain rows -- they didn't point out that only certain rows would get a corn dog.
The kids were not so disappointed that they did not get a corn dog, but that we didn't actually help set the record. We had been talking about it for more than a week and even moved our vacation up 1 whole day to participate, only to hear from D.J. and William, "You mean we didn't break the record?"
We could have spent the hour and a half NOT disappointing our kids! One volunteer offered to buy the kids a corndog, (I didn't tell her I have 5 kids!). We declined, but she missed the point -- we were there to participate!
What angers and frustrates me the most was that they knew even from the beginning that not all the people with numbers who were in the stands would get to participate, even though Bonnie from WHO kept repeating that you needed to 'be in the seats!'

The one positive was that we did get in for free, but again, that wasn't the reason we were there. Perhaps I'll write to Van and Bonnie and let them know.