The Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry has a number of events planned for the new year.
Council On Tourism Director John Papalia said Warren City Council has approved a request to hold a pond hockey tournament in January at Betts Park.
The event is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 5 and will be held at the east end of the park.
Two portable rinks will be used and lights will be set up to allow games throughout the day.
The Warren County Outdoor and Travel Show will return on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 12-13 at the Warren Mall.
A number of hunting and fishing vendors are lined up to participate for the event that is now in its third year.
The event was recently approved to be a gun show and Papalia said they are currently working to recruit gun vendors for the event.
An outdoor auction is also in the works during the day.
"It's one of those events that has really taken off. It's become a premier event for us," he said. "We plan to put somewhere between 7,000 to 9,000 people through the mall in a few days."
The Gus Macker 3-On-3 basketball tournament and the Allegheny Burger Festival will return to Betts Park on May 17-19 for their third year.
Papalia said the tournament will run similar to the last two years with courts kept to the west end of the park, but they may play with the layout to get more room for vendors.
"We really feel that holding the Burger Festival and Macker together was a win-win for everybody," he said.
The WCCBI will work with the Russell Volunteer Fire Department to hold the Tour De Russell Bike Race with the Fireman's Jubilee on May 25.
This year's event was the most successful so far with 60 to 70 riders participating, Papalia said.
"The Russell Volunteer Fire Department does a tremendous job controlling traffic during the event," he said.
Ribfest will have a new name next year and a slightly different set up under the name The All-American BBQ Festival and State Championship BBQ. It will be held in cooperation with the Kansas City Barbeque Society, "a very competitive cooking organization focusing on a variety of things," Papalia said.
"We felt whenever you can add something new to an event it brings back people who may have not visited the event in a while," he said. "Competitive cooking is the way to go."
The familiar spread of rib and food vendors will return next year and competitors will cook for a group of approved judges in a separate section of the park.
"We will have additional vendors who will be selling to the public and enter a separate team in the cookoff," Melissa Anderson, director of chamber operations at the WCCBI, said.
The WCCBI is also looking for judges and has posted a registration form on its website at www.wccbi.org.
Certified judging classes will be tentatively offered the week before the event and Anderson said applicants have already submitted forms from as far away as Philadelphia and Binghamton, N.Y.