It’s Official. This Year’s RibFest Was The Biggest Ever

The 17th annual Sioux Falls RibFest last weekend turned out to be the biggest ever. When new title sponsor Chuck Brennan and the Dollar Loan Center held an event in February that included Mike Reno of Loverboy, Rickey Medlocke of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, Tom Keifer of Cinderella and Stephen Pearcy of Ratt just to ANNOUNCE the lineup for the annual event, we all had a feeling that it was going to be a great weekend at the WH Lyon Fairgrounds, a first for the long running festival. The numbers released today show it was a GREAT weekend.

Eleven national bands, a handful of local bands and even five bands of students from the Brennan Rock & Roll Academy were scheduled to take the stage over the four day event, May 29-June 1. Beautiful weather over the first two days helped draw huge crowds to the Fairgrounds and even torrential (and record) rainfall over the weekend, didn't slow us down.

Record crowds beat the record rainfall as an estimated 47,000 people attended RibFest over the four days. In numbers released by SMG Friday morning, an estimated 11,000 attended Thursday, headlined by Loverboy.

An estimated 13,000 came out for Ladies Night Friday, headlined by Rick Springfield. Despite a torrential downpour Saturday afternoon that likely kept quite a few people away, an estimated 18,000 of us came out for Southern Hospitality night, headlined by Lynyrd Skynyrd. And another 5000 turned out on Sunday for KidzFest to see several bands from the Brennan Rock and Roll Academy perform!

With the success of this year's event, it's probably safe to assume that we will be back at the Fairgrounds again next May for another great festival! Thanks again to everyone at the Dollar Loan Center, SMG, WH Lyon Fairgrounds, the Brennan Rock and Roll Academy, and all of YOU for coming out and supporting the unofficial kick-off to summer in the Sioux Empire!

We've got recaps, photos, videos and more from all the days of RibFest at the links below.

Click here for a recap of Thursday with Loverboy, April Wine, Honeymoon Suite and Helix

Click here for a  recap of Friday with Rick Springfield, Tom Keifer, Dee Snider and Stephen Pearcy

Click here for a recap of Saturday with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Foghat and Head East

Click here for a recap of Sunday with bands from the Brennan Rock and Roll Academy

Click here for a photo gallery from the weekend.