Oh “happy Monday! . . . Great numbers!” – emailed assistant Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo publicity manager Shanna Weaver from Will Rogers Memorial Center.
The third weekend of the 23-day, 120th Stock Show will be one to remember, with a new one-day/anyday Stock Show attendance record set at approximately 163,200 Saturday show/rodeo visitors, participants and workers on the 85-acre city-owned center’s grounds.
Through Sunday, the 2016 Stock Show & Rodeo is on a record-setting attendance pace, and the big steer and barrow shows, Thursday and Friday, and the annual Junior Sale of Champion Livestock, Saturday, are coming up.
• Stock Show & Rodeo records show the previous one-day peak at 157,800, set on the third Saturday of the 2013 installment.
• Sunday’s attendance came to 105,600, a new record for all Sundays at the Stock Show. The previous Sunday peak was 92,100, set on the third Sunday in 2012.
“We broke all-time ‘day attendance’ records,” Weaver said.
Warm, dry, excellent winter weather both Saturday and Sunday were big factors, plus contributions from the popular junior wether lamb and wether goat shows; rabbit show and auction; Hereford, Angus, shorthorn, red Angus, Limousin and other cattle breed shows; and five rodeo performances.
If the year-to-date pace continues through this Saturday, the final day, the total 23-day 2016 attendance will set a new record, beating last year’s current record-setting tally of 1,248,500.
About 897,500 people have attended through Sunday, up from 884,600 through the third Sunday in 2015.