Peter Coulter

Review of National Western Stock Show

We had purchased tickets for Friday January 24th i...

We had purchased tickets for Friday January 24th including the Rodeo. An emergency came up and we had to reschedule for Saturday the 25th, the day before the last day of the Stock Show/Rodeo. I couldn't get tickets for the 25th, but they told us to come on out and there should be some available. We went in the back entrace by the stock yards and had to pay tickets for the viewing ground at $19 for adult and $3 for child up to 11. Since we had 7 teenagers with us, plus a couple of children, that cost in excess of $190, but we were told we could trade those tickets in on the Rodeo tickets at the front desk. The first thing we noticed was most of the stock was gone and the vendors were packing up to leave. The buses were supposed to run every 35 minutes, but they were overloaded so we had to wait an 70 minutes to get a ride.
We watched an event in the education center and then started to make our way to the front ticket office to exchange our tickets where we were told that there weren't any. And there was no way to refund the exorbitant entry tickets. It was a disaster and we decided to leave. I happened to walk into one of the portals of the Rodeo and to my surprise and disgust, at least 1/3 of the stands were empty. We have been going to the stock show since the late 60's and never had a real issue before this but Mr. Andrews, you can be assured you will never see another dime of our money and I will voice my dissatisfaction when you try to procure a new facility.