Gordon Rigg writes:

I cannot get travel/repatriation/search and rescue insurance for a
professional competition. This is defined as not being able to compete for
monetary reward. A prize of an expensive physical item is not a problem. I could
not attend Dinosaur for that reason. The European pilot is employed by a glider
manufacturer - perhaps that makes a professional competition insurance policy
possible somehow.

Gordon is referring to Christian Ciech.

I am not at all surprised that prize money did not attract many
pilots. For a lot of us it makes attendance impossible! (I discussed this at
length with the organizers). How far would that prize money have stretched
towards making it easier for all to to attend?

For example: could the entry fee have been reduced and everyone collected and
returned to LAX with all retrieves and accommodation provided? In my mind, that
is what would attract pilots. At least prize money is now proven not to be an
incentive. Perhaps now if any such money is available it can be spent on things
that will attract pilots rather than turn them away.

Prize money belonged to a time when there were many pilots and lots of comps and
the competitions were competing to attract pilots from other comps. Now there
are fewer pilots, and each it thinking "how can I afford the time and cost to do
this competition". So the way to attract pilots is to make it cheaper and easier
to attend, not dangle an incentive of a prize for one or two of the ones that
managed to get there. Once we are there none of us lack motivation to actually
compete!

Also, at least for European pilots, FAI WPRS points are important. So an FAI
cat2 registration is an attraction, and that means sticking to a std scoring
system so you cant innovate with dropping tasks and the like.