Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

RIBFEST WEEKEND WRAP

No bones about it! The 12th annual Daybreak Rotary Ribfest was a tasty success

Aug 14, 2023 | 5:08 PM

KAMLOOPS — A solitary rib bone. All that remains of one of the greatest celebrations of meat and community in Western Canada.

“These standalone [events], where they’re Ribfest-only [events], this is the largest in Western Canada,” Bryce Herman, spokesperson for Rotary Daybreak Kamloops explains. “We’re hoping to stay in that realm. We like that title.”

While the final fundraising totals are still being tallied, the 12th annual Kamloops Daybreak Rotary Ribfest was a huge success from an attendance standpoint. Herman says over the entire weekend, the total attendance was between 80,000 and 90,000 visits to the park.

“On Friday night (Aug. 11), we had about 10,000-plus people in the park for the closing [band],” Herman says. “And then we had 12,000-plus on Saturday. It was a sea in here, absolutely phenomenal energy. Of course [Sunday night], a little quieter which is very typical. We had about 5,000 people here for the closing event on Sunday.”

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For Ribfest chair Danica Wilkinson, it was great to see all the hard work that Rotary and the other volunteers put in get appreciated.

“It was absolutely electric,” Wilkinson says. “We had the bands rocking on the main stage, we had sponsors in the VIP tent. The ribbers were yelling out ‘full rack’ every 20 seconds, absolutely electric. One of the things I always think back to is how all the volunteers were doing, and they were having a blast.”

With that many people consuming all manner of carnivorous delights, there was a mountain of waste created. However, the goal of Ribfest is to divert as much of what is left behind away to the landfill.

“We’ve got a lot of sorting to do this morning,” said Wilkinson. “But we’re going to take our time and we’re going to sort it properly because we want to be that zero waste [event]. We don’t want to be lazy and just throw it all into the landfill. I think we’re going to hit about 90 per cent diverted, again.”

While the attendance numbers were amazing, and the fundraising totals are still being tabulated, there’s one number that remains a mystery, even to organizers: How many racks of ribs were consumed?

“The ribbers are somewhat guarded about what they share with us about the numbers of ribs that go out,” said Herman. “I do know that a couple of them ran out of ribs and they had to start pulling stock very early on.”