I am trying to avoid all hobby sims and lots but I still would like to have cooking contests and the likes. Is it possible to set these up on a community lots? If so, how would you go about it?

To hold a cooking contest on a community lot, just place the judging table on that lot. If you don't plan on having your Sim bring their contest entry from home in their inventory, you'll also want to place a refrigerator, counter and stove so they can prepare their entry on the spot.

If you look in your lot bin, Maxis was kind enough (heh) to include a cook-off lot called
*Copurs Kitchen Cook-Off*. If you place it in your neighborhood, it will give you an idea about what is required for a community cook-off lot. Needless to say, it needs a little rehab (argh..the colors..they burn).

Is it the same for all hobby realated "contests"?

some of the contests you can have at home, the dance and game contests are able to be done at home as long as there are enough sims on the lot to participate.

Actually, I meant to post and ask that before -- where is that table? I can't find it in the catalogue .. neither on residential nor on comm lots. I'm never ever going to resort to using a maxis lot in my game =).

pb, have you looked through the Free Time collection folder?

I think so, yes. Is it in there? Should I look again? (I probably checked out the collection right after installing, which would have been before I knew anything about food contests =)

ETA: Just went through the collection: no, it's not in there (neither in resi nor on comm lots). Sniff. So is there any way to do that competition thing without having to use one of those horrible Maxis lots?

ETA2: Solved it! After deleting the cache files (accessory.cache, groups.cache, cigen.package) the table now shows up for me. Much relieved!

I had the same problem of not being able to find the table..and I'm still being thick - where are those cache files hiding?

MyDocuments > EAGames > TS2 > groups.cache
MyDocuments > EAGames > TS2 > accessory.cache

Thanks plasticbox
*goes off to fix it*