Ribfest went off without a hitch, collecting $48,000 in donations over the weekend.
Organizers don't have their net proceeds calculated yet but will have the total in a month or so which will determine the funds Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium has for charity.
Ribfest is hosted by the Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium and this year was its 25th year being celebrated.
From Friday to Sunday the event saw over 38,000 attendees a bit lower than 2022 with 45,000 attendees.
“But all of our numbers last year are a bit of an anomaly because that was our first in person event since 2019,” said Dan O’Donnell, Ribfest chair.
“I think we're more than satisfied with the turnover with the revenue that we generated,” he said.
This was the first time Ribfest offered a shuttle bus service from downtown Guelph to the event lot at Riverside Park. The shuttle ran from 12:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and had a total of 241 passengers, approximately 22 passengers an hour.
O'Donnell considers the numbers from the shuttle service a success since they only arranged for the service to operate a week prior to Ribfest weekend.
There was also a bike valet and 517 bikes were parked.
“It’s a community event and there was an awful lot of smiling faces and faces,” O’Donnell said.
A comment from an attendee a number of years ago that still sticks out to O’Donnell is a family who said Ribfest was their end of summer thing since they can’t afford to go to the CNE they head over to Riverside Park instead.
“That’s what we want it to be. Keep people coming back,” said O’Donnell.
“It's really about the charities that we support. So we're grateful for the community coming out and supporting us so that we can do our work and support them,” he said.
