Ribfest — the granddaddy of Fourth of July celebrations during its heyday in Naperville — faces a hazy future after a two-year stint in Wheaton coming out of the pandemic.
“We never planned one this year, so we didn’t really cancel it because we never scheduled it,” said Emy Trotz, president of the Exchange Club of Naperville, the civic group in charge of Ribfest. “We had other things going on that we didn’t have the capability to put it together.”
For decades, Ribfest reigned over the suburban summer festival season with trophy-winning barbecue, star-studded concerts featuring artists such as Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler and Hootie & the Blowfish, thousands of volunteers and the grand finale: a Fourth of July fireworks show over Naperville’s Knoch Park.
After a pandemic hiatus, organizers mounted a comeback in 2022, cooking up a scaled-back version of Ribfest at a new venue — the DuPage County fairgrounds — during Father’s Day weekend.
Last year, Ribfest changed dates again, closing out the festival season with a three-day day barbecue party in September at the county fairgrounds. The Exchange Club has not yet made a formal announcement about the future of Ribfest.
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