The way I understood it was like this. The public could attend but a ticket must be had for the dinner. Tickets are only available to BBBC members and 1 guest. This is taken from the BBBC website.
The Annual Banquet and Awards Ceremony will be held at Ashland University in the convocation center on Saturday February 13th. The doors open at 11 am and is open to the public. We welcome the public to come in out of the cold and enjoy the deer head display and attend our seminars. Our guest speaker, Gordon Whittington, editor in chief of North American Whitetail Magazine, will have a seminar at 2:00. We also have Dr. Mike Tonkovich, ODNR deer program administrator, that will give his seminar at 3:00. All this is free and open to the public. Come and enjoy the day.
The banquet at 5:30 will require a ticket that had to be purchased ahead of time.
Hope this clears things up a bit.