Little Big Town performs at RODEOHOUSTON.
Although the 2016 Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo did not experience its highest attendance numbers with 2.46-million visitors compared to 2.483 last year, preliminary data revealed that on-site spending for food and carnival rides was higher than in the past.
The show, which unveiled its new tagline ‘Live the Brand’ was held March 1-20 at Houston’s NRG Park. It included more than 32,000 volunteers and a staff of more than 100.
“The uptick in spending may be due to lower fuel costs, which increased attendees’ disposable income,” said Joel Cowley, the show’s president and CEO. “In both 2014 and 2015, we had two weeks of school spring breaks in the metro area, while this year all districts in the seven-county area were only on break for the final week of the show, which accounts for the slight decrease in attendees.”
Paid rodeo/concert attendance reached 1,345,983 fans, ranking third in paid rodeo/concert attendance. Two of the 2016 RODEOHOUSTON performances landed in the list of the show’s top 20 paid rodeo/concert attendance records, including Banda Los Recoditos and Los Huracanes Del Norte with 75,508 attendees, and Luke Bryan with 75,082 attendees. Entertainer merchandise sales reached nearly $2 million.
Concert tickets were priced at $28.50 apiece, with 10 sold-out shows out of 20 and average attendance totaling 67,300 per night for the rodeo and concerts.
“In terms of concert ticket sales, we were down 2.3 percent versus 2015, but looking at the five-year average, we were on the positive side,” said Dan Cheney, the show’s COO.
RODEOHOUSTON committed $2,172,100 to its contestants in 2016, including the RODEOHOUSTON Super Series and RODEOHOUSTON Super Shootout presented by Crown Royal purses, plus appearance fees.
From March 1-19, the 2016 RODEOHOUSTON Super Series included the world's top rodeo athletes competing in seven events for a share of $1.74 million in prize money.
The RODEOHOUSTON Super Shootout: North America’s Champions presented by Crown Royal, was held on March 20 with champion athletes from eight of the top rodeos in the U.S. and Canada competing. Contestants participated as individuals and as part of a team for a total purse of $250,000 in bareback riding, barrel racing, bull riding, saddle bronc riding and steer wrestling.
In addition to its Heritage Partner sponsors NRG, Ford, Miller Lite, Coca-Cola and Mattress Firm, the show brought in seven new sponsorships from Occidental Petroleum Co.; ABB; Accenture, Baylor College of Medicine, KSBJ, METRO, and Renewal by Anderson.
New to this year’s show was First Responder’s Day, presented by BP and held on opening day. In addition to recognition throughout the park, public law enforcement, firefighters, EMS and other emergency services agencies in the Houston Metropolitan Area received free admission to the grounds for themselves and four family members.
“This is something we will do again and that worked well with day two’s Armed Forces Day,” said Crowley.
Live television broadcast of the event was aired on FOX Sports Southwest throughout the U.S. and Canada on March 16-20. FoxSports.com/Southwest also provided a live stream of rodeo action.
Social media played a big part in promoting this year’s event. In addition to 240,808 public posts on the Internet regarding the show, messaging reached more than 192-million people internationally. Original content received more than 120-million shares and retweets worldwide.
Also, for the first time, the show utilized Facebook LIVE videos, awarding fans with meet-and-greet passes, and produced two 360-degree videos. The #RODEOHOUSTON Unplugged series also garnered 1.34 million views on Facebook.
Public transportation was heavily used, with more than 655,000 visitors taking the Rodeo Express and METRO Park & Ride locations, and more than 370,000 riding METRORail to this year’s event.
“Light rail ridership was up 5.7 percent from last year, which is attributed to additional lines opening up,” said Crowley.
A number of operational improvements were made on the show grounds, including the addition of pedestrian bridges connecting the NRG Center and NRG Arena, an expanded tent viewing area and new restrooms.
“We were starting to see an increased trend of people coming to the park on light rail, so we improved this to accommodate a greater number of people,” said Cheney. “We also implemented pedestrian bridges in this area so as not to interrupt traffic flow, while also investing $250,000 in infrastructures for five comfort stations to improve restroom experiences and handle increased volume.”
All-weather parking also was increased by approximately 1,000 spots.
In terms of concessions, financials were not yet available. Visitors consumed 146,000 pounds of potatoes, 115,000 barbecue sandwiches, 69,000 turkey legs, 53,000 funnel cakes, 45,000 corn dogs, 44,000 sausages on-a-stick, 22,000 fried Oreos, 18,000 cinnamon rolls, 18,000 ears of roasted corn,14,000 servings of dipped-and-deep-fried cookie dough on-a-stick and 7,000 pierogies over the show’s 20 days.
Carnival per caps were not available at press time, but the top five rides at this year’s show were Sky Ride, Coaster, Rave Wave, La Grande Ferris Wheel and G Force. The most popular games were Mini Basketball, One Ball and Bank-a-Ball.
Six Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion junior market and school art auction lots set or matched world or show records, while the wine auction brought in $1,420,351. The Ranching & Wildlife Auction totaled $372,835.
The Show committed more than $25.8 million to scholarships and education in 2016, with $12,981,000 in scholarships to be awarded this summer, $7,463,250 for 2016 junior market show and School Art Auction exhibitors and calf scramble participants, $4,888,610 in educational program grants and $525,400 in graduate assistantships
Next year’s show will start a week later, running from March 7-26, due to scheduling around the Super Bowl which will be held in Houston.
Interviewed for this story: Dan Cheney, (832) 667-1000; Joel Crowley, (832) 667-1000