Excitement builds as The Harvest King RibFest North Bay opens

The Harvest King RibFest North Bay opens today at North Bay’s waterfront, the first RibFest event in North Bay since 2019.  

“It’s an opportunity to get people out and start participating in these kinds of events again, which really brings a sense of normalcy,” says Steve Bitonti.  

“It has been a while since we have been able to have an event of this size.” 

Bitonti is the Owner and Operator of The Boat North Bay, which will host live music in the evening throughout the four days, with the festival taking place right along North Bay’s waterfront.  

“I think this is bigger than what a lot of people anticipated,” says Bitonti.  

“That’s one of the reasons we had to move it to the Waterfront, because we could have a bigger foot print down here. We also want it to be family oriented and so we’re hoping that the Heritage Railway and Carousel can get some spin off and that people will go for a ride while they’re here.” 

Since 2013, RibFest was operated by Tom and Geoff Richardson with the festival taking place at the Voyaguer Inn.  

“They did great work on it,” says Bitonti.  

“It was one of those projects that we always admired and supported and since we are in the same line of business, we thought it would be a good opportunity to take it on.” 

Bitonti says outside of the food, there is a good mix of local and national talent to entertain the crowds over the weekend (Full lineup can be seen here).  

“The entertainment is going to be huge; we haven’t had this kind of significant entertainment at an outdoor event in North Bay in quite some time,” he says.  

“We’ve also got the Ultimate Kids Zone and Dan the Music Man who will perform twice for the kids on Saturday. There are face painters, balloon makers, giant inflatables and a fire truck tour as well.” 

One of the headliners is an Elvis Presley impersonator known as Covid-Elvis. 

“Throughout Covid we really heard how tough things were for the Food Bank and so we really want to help them out here, in fact that’s why we chose this particular Elvis Presley impersonator, known as Covid-Elvis. He has raised over 60,000 lbs. of food for food banks across southern Ontario. He’s excited to rock North Bay and be on the URIDE Stage, and see if we can fill a Ford Truck (given by Stockfish Ford) with non-perishable food items every day,” says Bitonti.  

Event goers are encouraged to bring non-perishable food items while proceeds from the event will go towards The North Bay Food Bank.  

“It’s a $10-a-day wristband with kids 12 and under free. We also have the $15 four-day pass which stays on sale until today at 2pm (Thursday, July 14th) which means for $3.25 per day you can get in for all four days, and that can be purchased at The Boat,” says Bitonti.  

The wristband gets you into the festival grounds, but that’s not the only way you can purchase some ribs.  

“There is an express line for ribs, so you don’t have to pay to get in just to get ribs,” says Bitonti.  

“You can use the express line to get your ribs and you can enjoy them at home or in the park somewhere.” 

Bitonti says there is a big cost to putting on these events when you factor in everything behind the scenes. He says, “That includes purchasing Porta Potties, to gas and hydro locates, to tent rentals, to the rib and other vendors, to t-shirts for the crew working the event.” 

But he adds, “We had to go out and really grind the pavement for sponsorships. Coming out of Covid it was going to be a risk, but we knew we really had a meat and potatoes...and rib kind of package that people would enjoy, and they have. The sponsors have really enabled us to keep the cost of tickets low.” 

Bitonti says with their experience of doing past events such as the power boat racing and the VSE Beach Volleyball tournament they knew they could pull this off.  

“Louise Lowe has been a very important part of the project and Debbie Marson from the Food Bank has been amazing to work with. My team from the boat has been tremendous with my brother Peter handling a lot of those duties. We have also been able to soundboard off of Geoff Richardson,” says Bitonti. 

“While it still comes with a degree of difficulty, working with our partners and with the city to get it done has come along well,” he says. 

“I think when those fireworks are going off for the finale, we’ll be taking a big sigh of relief and maybe shed a tear, but there will be a lot of smiles for sure.”