Big day coming for Houston rodeo fans – Houston Business Journal (blog)
The Houston Rodeo books major entertainment.
There are no post-holiday blahs for Houston, because just days after the tree goes into the attic, we’ll know who’s coming to the rodeo.
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo will announce its 2011 concert lineup this Monday at 10 a.m. Though the rodeo has always been Houston’s anchor to its Western heritage, even rodeo CEO Skip Wagner ranks last year’s performance of the Black-Eyed Peas among his two all-time favorites (the other being Garth Brooks).
“It may be the only concert where nobody in the upper tiers left early to beat the traffic,” Wagner recalled. “It was that fantastic.”
Since Gene Autry’s performance there in 1942, the rodeo has kept the same core elements, Wagner said — the livestock show, rodeo and concert performance. These basic elements will remain even as the rodeo grows.
The rodeo is perhaps unlike other institutions in that its biggest impediment to growth is not the recession, but room to grow.
“What we need, quite honestly, is additional exhibit and performance space,” he said of the ever-growing Houston tradition. “We think we can continue to grow.”
The 2011 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo runs March 1 through March 20. Tickets go on sale Jan. 15.
For more about the rodeo’s past, present and future, read the Houston Business Journal’s special section online and in print Jan. 28.