The grills will remain cold. For 2024 at least.
The Exchange Club of Naperville is not holding its annual Ribfest this year, club President Emy Trotz said this week, declining to say why the event was not happening or if it will return next year.
It would have been Ribfest’s 35th installation.
For decades, the multiday affair reigned as the pièce de résistance of summer fanfare in Naperville, drawing in thousands from all over the Chicago area and beyond to indulge in fare offered by award-winning rib vendors as well as a host of other attractions, including concerts by well-known performers.
The festival also served as the major fundraiser for the Exchange Club of Naperville, a civic service organization dedicated to ending domestic violence and child abuse. Funds raised by Ribfest typically went to local charitable organizations that supported the club’s causes, putting more than $20 million back into the Naperville area over its tenure, according to Trotz.
For a while now, though, Ribfest has been undergoing changes. It was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And before that, it was forced to leave its longtime venue at Naperville’s Knoch Park after renovations made the site no longer suitable for festivities.
When Ribfest resumed after its COVID-19 hiatus, Ribfest 2022 was moved to the DuPage Event Center & Fairgrounds in Wheaton and staged over the Father’s Day weekend in June rather than its traditional Fourth of July schedule.
Changes continued last year when the event date was pushed back to mid-September.
No plans for a Ribfest 2024 were broached with county fairgrounds officials, according Jim McGuire, CEO of the DuPage County Fair Association and fairgrounds manager.
Speaking over the phone Tuesday, McGuire said he hadn’t heard from any Ribfest organizers since about a month after last year’s event.
“We reached out,” he said, “and we tried but we have not heard any information.”
He added, “I don’t have anything on the books. We didn’t put anything down because we had not heard from them. We didn’t know what their plans were, so we moved forward.”
Asked if the fairgrounds would have been open to holding Ribfest this year, McGuire said yes.
The beginnings of Ribfest date back to 1987, when an idea for a community festival centered on ribs was hatched at a family gathering of Glen Ekey, the then-executive director of the Naperville Park District. Ekey passed on the suggestion to Bruce Erickson, a charter member for the Exchange Club, which was newly formed at the time.
A year later, the first Ribfest kicked off on Rotary Hill for three days in mid-June. The cost to attend was $2 a day. Bands like The Buckinghams, Three Dog Night and Ides of March accompanied the barbecue bash.
By 1989, the festival had found its footing. It moved to Knoch Park and took place around the July Fourth holiday. For the next 30 years, that’s how Ribfest stayed. All the while, the event expanded — in size and esteem.
It was voted Best Festival in Illinois by the Illinois Professional Festival Association in 1990. By 2000, only 12 years after launching, Ribfest had some 21 vendors flocking to Naperville from as far as Sydney, Australia, to show off their rib prowess.
Entertainment followed suit.
Take 2003, for instance, when Ribfest featured Hootie & the Blowfish. The band attracted such a large audience that scores of people had to be turned away at the gate. It was a harbinger for just how popular Ribfest would get. Just four years later, in 2007, it was estimated that between 285,000 and 290,000 people attended the festival.
Other Ribfest performers went on to include Los Lobos, REO Speedwagon, Heart, Rick Springfield, Sheryl Crow, Steven Tyler, Billy Idol and Flo Rida. Last year, Third Blind Eye and Phil Vassar headlined.
“Its success was known throughout the region,” Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli said Monday. “I mean, we had people show up from all over the country to sample ribs or to serve them at this annual event. It was a great annual tradition.”
Wehrli knows Ribfest well — he used to work at the event. For decades, Wehrli served as a part-time police officer for the Naperville Park District, a post that had him working Ribfest year after year.
“It started out real early for me in my life. … It was a lot of fun over the years to see how it grew and see its success poured out into the dollars and cents into the community,” Wehrli said.
Looking ahead to the long-term future of Ribfest, Trotz wouldn’t say much. Asked if there was a possibility that Exchange would host the event again, she said, “There’s always a possibility (it could return). I just know this year was not possible.”
Naperville Sun and Chicago Tribune archives contributed.
