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Hot off the smoking grill, a serving of sauce-covered ribs has been the main draw at the Great American Rib Cook-Off and Music Festival, an annual Memorial Weekend tradition in Cleveland. Producers have announced the event for 2016 has been cancelled.

(Peggy Turbett, The Plain Dealer )

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- From the first scent of sizzling ribs to the fading strains of the weekend's final performance, for the past 24 years the Great American Rib Cook-Off has been one of Cleveland's biggest food festivals.

And Northeast Ohioans may have attended their last one.

On the eve of its 25th anniversary, producers of have dropped the event from the 2016 calendar.

Barry Gabel, spokesman for Live Nation, says the company has decided to ice the four-day-long festival, traditionally held over Memorial Day weekend at Jacobs Pavilion and the Nautica Entertainment Complex.

"It's time to take a breather," says Gabel, senior vice-president for marketing and sponsorship for Live Nation.

"Bottom line, we've done the event for so long we've decided we'll move on, and we'll focus on all the other events and festivals we're staging this year," Gabel says.

"So it's not going to happen, at least by us," he adds.

For years the event has unofficially launched the summer outdoor party season. The Great American Rib Cook-Off signaled a mash-up of competitive grillers from around the region and nation, live music from an array of performers, contests and throngs of rib-lovers who come to Flats West Bank to slurp sauce and suck rib bones.

But over-saturation of similar events became a key factor in Live Nation's decision to cancel, Gabel explains.

"It seems there's a rib cook-off in every city, every suburb, just about every summer weekend in Northeast Ohio," he says. "We're the only ones that draw the kind of talent, on a national basis, for this kind of event - and we didn't want to slip-slide along.

"It's not an inexpensive event to stage. And it just seemed like the area is saturated."

Gabel insists the decision "isn't any kind of negotiating ploy" on the part of Live Nation. And the door remains open to other potential producers.

"This doesn't necessarily mean it's over for good," he says. "It's a fabulous event. We love the cook-off, and the fans that support it, and all our grillers. We just felt that our energies could be put into other events and festivals we're producing this year."