Hendricks County
Rib Fest & BBQ
A local tradition finds a home at the 4-H fairgrounds
By Matt Beardmore
This small, local event outgrew Washington Township Park and then Kingsway Christian Church in Avon did not have enough capacity. Since the Greater Avon Chamber of Commerce moved its annual Hendricks County Rib-Fest & BBQ to the Hendricks County 4-H Fairgrounds in Danville three years ago, the event has continued to grow in popularity for those in Avon and the surrounding counties.
Scheduled for June 29, the 19th Annual Hendricks County Rib-Fest & BBQ is expected to host between 7,000 and 12,000 people, said Tom Downard, the Greater Avon Chamber of Commerce’s executive director for the last 24 years. The popular family event starts in the morning with the 9th Annual Rib Run (a Rib Run 5K and Riblet Kids Run), and continues throughout the day with a craft fair, games, a petting zoo, plenty of food and beer, a competition for “Best Ribs” and “Best Sauce,” and the return of live music to the festival. At night, all eyes will turn to the sky with the “illumination of festive hot air balloons” and fireworks.
“My biggest joy is just seeing kids running around and families having fun,” Downard said. “Of course there is also going to be a lot of great BBQ, and then at night people just gravitate to the balloon globe which is kind of cool.”
This one-day festival has come a long way since starting as a small family event that was quickly put together in 2005 at Washington Township Park. The chamber staff admittedly did not have high expectations for that first year, “but the turnover was fantastic – far more than we anticipated,” Downard said.
As the popularity of the event outgrew the size of its venues, the chamber moved the festival out of Avon to the nearby 4-H Fairgrounds in Danville, which can host events for up to 15,000 attendees, according to Steve Patterson, executive director of the 4-H Fairground since 2014.
“The size of our one-day event is huge and parking was always an issue,” Downard said, “so now the fairgrounds has plenty of room and parking – it’s been a great partnership.”
In addition to managing the festival parking – which costs $5, no matter how many people are in the car – Patterson’s team at the 4-H Fairgrounds is responsible for everything from procuring paper products, to brainstorming ways to maximize the venue’s 150-acre facility, to managing the team of volunteers that helps with parking along with set-up and cleanup of the fairgrounds.
“We have the knowledge of how to put on large events because we produce the annual Hendricks County 4-H Fair and host a number of other events throughout the year,” Patterson said. “The Rib-Fest is great for us because people from the east side of the county that maybe didn’t know about us get to see the fairgrounds and our different venues and might be interested in hosting an activity here like a wedding, tradeshow, reception or birthday party.”
For the chamber’s two-person staff – Downard and Executive Assistant Lisa Dulcich-Suyeyasu – the Hendricks County Rib-Fest & BBQ is a year-round project. “It’s quite a commitment,” Downard said. “A lot of things need to be done to make sure it goes off in the manner in which we have grown accustomed to.”
Funds raised from this year’s Hendricks County Rib-Fest & BBQ (there is no entrance fee), will be used to support the chamber and its many programs. The chamber is supporting DECA, an emerging leaders program at Avon High School that participates in an out-of-state competition each year. Also, for the first time, the chamber is directing proceeds from the festival’s 5K run and walk to the Avon American Legion Post 145 to help offset the cost of purchasing a service dog for the military veterans in that organization.
“We didn’t want to leave our community in Avon, but in order to grow the event, we needed a bigger footprint – and the fairgrounds has enabled us to do that,” Downard said. “It’s basically right next door in Danville so it’s not as though we had to go that far.”
For more detail on the Hendricks County Rib-Fest & BBQ, please visit https://www.avonchamber.org/hendricks-country-rib-fest/ or https://www.visithendrickscounty.com/events/festivals/ribfest/.
