Beautiful weather, great food and entertainment helped make Chatham Ribfest a huge success this year.
“I’ve heard that people were ‘hungry’ to come out to Ribfest and excited to come out and support a great event,” organizer Chris Glassford of Summit Shows Canada, quipped.
“We’ve had a great weekend,” he said. “I believe we’ve actually had higher traffic than before COVID.”
Glassford said the first Ribfest in Tecumseh Park without pandemic restrictions attracted an estimated 40,000 people, up from the 30,000 that typically came out prior to COVID.
The Guyett family from Dealtown was among those excited to be back at Ribfest.
“We usually come every year,” said Mike Guyett, who was enjoying some food with his wife Courtney and children Keegan, 12, and Addisyn, 9.
“It’s great to get back out in the public again and being able to enjoy events,” he said.
“I like it a lot, because we haven’t done it for the last two years,” Addisyn said.
“It’s great, because we can just socialize again,” Keegan added.
Organizers brought Ribfest back in a big way with five ribbers, midway rides, entertainment, vendors and Art in the Park with free admission to the event.
“The plan, originally, was to do it big and every time I turned around it got bigger and bigger,” Glassford said.
He said the addition of Art in the Park was great and being able to secure carnival rides happened last minute.
“Unfortunately over COVID a bunch of those ride companies did not make it, so there were some holes in contracts.”
He said Wallaceburg-based Family Time Amusements stepped up and said they have an opening in their calendar and offered to be a part of Ribfest.
He added they are already looking at expanding next year, including making Art in the Park larger and adding more features.
Glassford believes everyone took local events for granted prior to the COVID pandemic and are now supporting them now that they are back.