The Twin City RibFest is moving from downtown to the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds, organizers said yesterday. The RibFest will run June 11-14, 2009. Since 2005, the event had been held in the parking lot of First Presbyterian Church in downtown Winston-Salem. Allen McDavid, the owner of AKA Entertainment & Media of Greensboro and the festival's producer, said yesterday that moving the RibFest to the fairgrounds will allow organizers to add more rib vendors and better handle some of the logistics of the festival such as parking.

"It was always in the back of my mind that we needed to go there," he said. "There were things we need to do to expand it that we just couldn't do downtown." However, McDavid said that moving the festival is bittersweet. "It's (downtown) been good to me, and the folks with the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership were supportive from the very beginning," McDavid said. Justin Gomez, the marketing and projects manager for the partnership, said that McDavid considered what was best for the festival. "It's been a great event for downtown," Gomez said. "It's been held each year and been successful each year. It outgrew its space." The festival had six rib vendors this year but could have as many as nine next year, McDavid said.

Also, the crowds were getting too large for the downtown location. "It was just getting to the point where it was packed," he said. For the past few years, 25,000 to 30,000 people attended each festival. Rain on June 14 might have affected the attendance this year. The fairground location also will mean that the festival can run through Sunday, which was not an option while it was being held in a church parking lot, McDavid said. Each night of the festival will have a theme and a featured performer, McDavid said. One such theme planned for the 2009 festival is an old-school hip-hop night, featuring 1990s rapper Vanilla Ice. McDavid said he hopes to organize another festival downtown in addition to the RibFest at the fairgrounds. He declined to discuss what kind of festival he might want to bring to downtown.