amish illinois

BBQ Teams come from all of the country to compete in the Central Illinois Braggin' Rights BBQ held in downtown Arthur each October.

Central Illinois Braggin' Rights BBQ

Held the 2nd weekend of October each year!

We're looking forward to October in downtown Arthur!

Competition BBQ,  Wood smoke, great Q, and good music! Same time, same place. The weekend after the Royal, and again in downtown Arthur, IL. This is big time BBQ!

If you were here to compete last year, you know the great time we had... and all the people. We will keep the same $150 entry structure, plan on at least a $7500 purse, but we will expand our space limit to 60 teams ( which means only about 10 or 12 new teams.. so get your applications in early). We have additional locations available downtown, with additional electricity and will add more electricity to the existing areas. And more UNLOCKED toilets :-) Online applications are now available. We'll take credit cards with your applications or mail it in with a check.

If you just like BBQ to eat, like to cook it yourself at home, or have seen competitions on the food channel, you will want to be here in Arthur, this weekend!  We'll will have numerous, extremely great BBQ teams here working, and many of them will be set up to sell you some World Class 'Q. Live Bluegrass bands will be on the State Bank of Arthur Stage Friday night and Saturday up until the awards ceremonies at 3pm. We are inviting some quality fall craft vendors, merchants will have a sidewalk sale going on and we have a special play area for the kids (the Kid's Zone is sponsored by Stingkill)

We are adding a Friday evening bluegrass group to the stage, going to drop the dessert and side competition in favor of a peoples choice contest... but still no cost to enter and cash prizes from all the tickets sold on this evening. Check the details pages for more on this. For the public... you can be a judge yourself in this event. $10 gets you in on Friday night and you can taste-test all you want and vote for your favorite.

Check out www.CIBR-BBQ.com for more info on this exciting event.

Chet Kingery Memorial Bluegrass Jam

Chet was a widely known bluegrass picker in this area and had a large following with his house band. With the blessings of his family and the encouragement of his band members and followers, we will honor his memory with this day of camaraderie and song. The jam will center around the Visitors center in downtown Arthur, and across the street around the downtown gazebo. There are plenty of shaded benches to spread out in throughout the downtown area. The Gospel Book and Music Store, also downtown, draws instrument traders and buyers from many miles away and will be available for supplies and maybe have the guitar, banjo or dulcimer that your looking for on sale.

Join us in downtown Arthur on the last Saturday in September to jam with bluegrass players from all over the state.  Hundreds of pickers will descend on main street Arthur to get together with old friends and meet new friends to play all their favorites.  Groups will form on all corners of main street to pick.