Caldwell Night Rodeo

The arena gates on Blaine Street open at 5:30 in the evening, and the children ride first. At 6:30 the junior rodeo begins: Mini Mite and Pee Wee girls running barrels, boys in flag races, junior breakaway and co-ed team roping, and junior bulls put on by an outfit called Rodeo Fever. There is no mutton bustin’. The rodeo’s FAQ page makes that point twice. At 7:45 the professionals come out of the chutes for seven events, and they keep coming for five nights running.

Five nights on Blaine Street

The arena is the D&B Supply Arena at 2301 Blaine St., next to Simplot Stadium and O’Connor Field House. The crowd sorts itself into two camps, the “Rowdies” and the “Civies,” and the rodeo describes a long-running rivalry between them. Some fans prefer the roping chute side. Others take a cold drink in the beer garden, which the rodeo’s own history page says holds about 2,000. The same page promises “the occasional interruption of a train passing through town behind us.” The FAQ asks drivers not to park beside the tracks.

Only local service clubs may sell food on the grounds. The rodeo says that for many of those clubs, the profit from the five nights carries them through the year. Coca-Cola is the soft drink. Before the gates open, the Cowboy Up Mercantile opens the west gate at 4:30 for an hour of shopping, and in 2026 Serratelli, the official hat sponsor, was shaping hats there. Next door in O’Connor Field House, ticket holders who add the VIP dinner eat a catered western meal described as “local cater, local beef, local whiskey.” The dinner comes with a live band, interviews with professional athletes, and entry to the Seven Devils Saloon. Each rodeo morning the Caldwell Chamber of Commerce serves a Buckaroo Breakfast from 6:30 to 9:30.

The week opens on Monday with slack. These are the extra competition runs that don’t fit into the evening shows, and they are free to watch: barrel racing at 9 a.m., then team roping, breakaway, steer wrestling and tie-down at 4 p.m. Each evening performance has a theme:

• Tuesday: First Responder Family Night.
• Wednesday: the Man Up Crusade, when the crowd wears purple against domestic violence in the Treasure Valley.
• Thursday: CNR Strong, when people touched by cancer wear “the color that resonates with you the most.”
• Friday: Patriot Night.
• Saturday: Championship Night, when the 12 top athletes in each event compete for the title. Miss Caldwell Night Rodeo is crowned at 7:30, just before the pro rodeo.

On Friday and Saturday the official after party moves to Indian Creek Steakhouse at 711 Main St.

The rodeo counts some 700 contestants and puts attendance at over 50,000. The Idaho Rodeo Hall of Fame page and a 2015 radio history give a figure of around 40,000.

The 102nd rodeo, August 2026

The 2026 rodeo ran August 18–22 and was counted as the 102nd. On Saturday night it was the last for Randy Corley, who had announced the Caldwell Night Rodeo for four decades. “I love this rodeo, but I’m leaving it in really good hands with Andy Seiler,” he told CBS2. “Thank you to Caldwell, Idaho. Thank you to the Rowdies. Thank you to the Civvies and all of the fans. There’s none better in the world.” The rodeo also posted a farewell to Clint Humble, leaving the arena “for the last time after 17 years.”

In the short round there were six bronc rides of 90 points or better. Zac Dallas swept the bronc riding with 90 and 92, and the 92 set a new arena record. Jess Pope won the bareback riding with 88 in the first round and 89.5 in the finals on Powder River’s Outta Hand, one point ahead of Jayco Roper. Andrea Busby took the barrel racing on 33.74 seconds for two runs, against Tricia Aldridge’s 33.79. Traver Johnson won the Caldwell Western Heritage Award, worth a $10,000 bonus on top of his $11,789.61.

On Patriot Night, a portion of ticket sales, all tips, and the proceeds of a flag auction went to the Wyakin Foundation and the Caldwell Veterans Memorial Hall. On Saturday, through the Golden Circle of Champions, the rodeo honored TJ and Mia, two local children with leukemia, and split the night’s tips between their families. Courtney Marshall was crowned 2027 Miss Caldwell Night Rodeo. Ainsley Goughnour, the outgoing queen, wrote that her year had taken her across Idaho and into Washington, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

A cavalry stable and a string of lights

The rodeo’s official story begins in 1924. According to the rodeo’s Hall of Fame page, it started that year as a gymkhana and bucking contest. The purpose was to raise money for “an up-to-date riding hall and armory for the 116th Idaho National Guard cavalry unit stationed in Caldwell.” Robb Vavold, the rodeo’s president in 2024, told the Idaho Press: “In 1924, the United State government was threatening to disband the local National Guard. They had a horse cavalry unit and they were going to disband it if they didn’t provide proper stables. Everyone got together and they didn’t want to see that go away, so they started a fundraiser, a.k.a. the rodeo, to pay for the stables.”

In 1935 lights were hung, and Southwest Idaho had its first night rodeo. For decades the rodeo dated itself from that year. A 2015 history from Boise radio station Power 105.5 tells the 1935 beginning in its own way. In that account the event was part of the celebration for the 25th anniversary of irrigation on the Boise project, and it was called the Homesteaders’ Silver Jubilee and Night Rodeo. The same account says the rodeo took a two-year break during the war.

The older date surfaced only after the 2020 rodeo was canceled for COVID-19. With time on their hands, the staff went through the archives and found the 1924 contest. “We technically aged (11) years during COVID,” Vavold said. He thinks the 1935 date came from the year lights went up at the old grounds by the National Guard Armory, at the corner of Kimball and Paynter. The discovery left four years to plan a centennial. In 2024 the rodeo brought past queens to Caldwell’s Fourth of July parade. It named two Hall of Famers as grand marshals: Dean Oliver, a Nampa tie-down roper who dominated in the 1960s, and Lyle Buhler, the Idaho Cowboy Association’s rodeo clown of the year from 1972 to 1978. It also arranged flyovers with the Airhawk Museum in Nampa. “Generally the rodeo’s just going to be the rodeo,” Vavold said.

Rain, a tarp, and a slogan

The sources give different accounts of the 1960s. The Idaho Press says the rodeo stayed at the armory until 1964, spent one year at Simplot Stadium, and opened its present grounds in 1965. The 2015 radio history gives a different sequence:

• 1963: the rodeo moved to the new Canyon Multi-Purpose Stadium, shifted from August to June, and was renamed the Treasure Valley Round Up. Heavy rains made the bucking stock slip and slide out of the chutes, riders were hurt, and the Round Up ended deep in debt.
• 1966: the rodeo moved to the Simplot Stadium complex, went back to August, and took the name Caldwell Night Rodeo.

Both accounts agree on the bad year that followed. In 1965, the rodeo’s Hall of Fame page says, the headliner was Patty Paige. The Idaho Press spells it Patti Page and calls her the top-selling female artist of the 1950s. Rain fell all rodeo week and the stands stayed empty. By the rodeo’s own telling, “board directors had to hold a tarp over Miss Paige’s head while she sang ‘Little Doggie in the Window’ and she left with her paycheck. She was the only bill we were able to pay that year.” The rodeo went bankrupt.

The board vowed it would return, but with no more headliners. From then on it would be, in the rodeo’s words, “the rodeo where the cowboys (and cowgirls) were the only stars we featured.” Vavold told the Idaho Press that most rodeos of its size are built into concerts or fairs, and Caldwell still stands alone. Another 2024 president’s comment, given to CBS2, describes what that means at ground level: “You might be buying a hot dog at the hot dog stand, and right next to you is a world champion.”

Skyboxes and a lease to 2076

In 2004 the rodeo started a sister foundation, first called the Caldwell Western Heritage Foundation and now the Caldwell Night Rodeo Foundation. It gives college scholarships to local young people involved in western life and agriculture. The rodeo also buys animals from FFA and 4-H youth at the county fair. Caldwell’s mayor, Jarom Wagoner, remembered going to the rodeo as a child and working in the Rotary booths.

The grounds belong to the city, which signed a 30-year lease with the rodeo in 2019. Around 2024 the rodeo began a capital campaign of roughly $7.5 million to modernize and expand the grounds. Former Idaho governor Butch Otter chaired it, and the City Council unanimously approved a $1.6 million match. Construction was to begin October 1, 2024, and a ribbon cutting in 2025 marked the end of the first phase. For the second phase the rodeo planned twelve more skyboxes on the east and west bleachers, three of them facing Simplot Stadium, with the goal of finishing them for the 2026 rodeo.

In November 2025, at the city’s request, the rodeo submitted a revised lease, according to its president, Angelique Rood. The council approved it unanimously on Monday, August 17, the day before the 2026 rodeo opened. After the rodeo closed, the city announced a 50-year lease running through 2076. “This is about much more than a lease,” Mayor Eric Phillips said. “It is about preserving a tradition that has helped define Caldwell for generations.”

The rodeo’s calendar already lists its August dates through 2030, ending with August 13–17.