The Exchange Club of Naperville will not host Ribfest this year, according to the club’s president Emy Trotz.
“It was not canceled, we never scheduled it,” said Trotz.
Trotz said an official statement on Ribfest will be released once the Exchange Club’s board meets to discuss. She did not provide a timeline for when a statement would come out.
Trotz declined to comment further at this time.
Ribfest returns in Wheaton after pandemic
The first Ribfest was held in Naperville in 1988 on Rotary Hill. The annual festival moved to Knoch Park the following year and stayed there for the next 30 years.
The Exchange Club was forced to move the event from Knoch Park after the grounds underwent renovations.
Ribfest was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It returned in 2022 to the DuPage Event Center & Fairgrounds in Wheaton.
Date shifts for the festival in years past
For more than 30 years, the event was traditionally held on the weekend leading up to the Fourth of July. The 2022 Ribfest was held in mid-June over Father’s Day weekend, and the 2023 festival took place in mid-September.
Entertainment Chair of Ribfest Diane Simmons told NCTV17 in September 2023 that the event’s timing was shifted to later in the year due to “a combination of the fair schedule, and our schedule, and getting the entertainers lineup.”
This year’s Ribfest would have been the 35th.
NCTV17 will update this story as we receive further information.
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