Nile

The livestock barns at MetraPark open at noon on Thursday, October 8, 2026. By evening the club calves are crossing the scales in the Expo Center and the lambs and goats are being weighed in at the Montana Pavilion. The Northern International Livestock Exposition, known by its initials as the NILE, runs October 9 through 17. Hundreds of exhibitors from across the United States and Canada bring livestock to Billings to show and sell. The NILE’s count for the 2026 show is 14 open and junior breed shows, four junior fed market shows, a pen show, and multiple breed sales.

Barns, rings, and the pancake line

Most of the cattle come through the Expo Show Arena. On the master schedule, marked tentative as of May 26, 2026, the breeds follow one another through the week: Maine-Anjou and Mainetainer, Simmental, Shorthorn, Aberdeen, Miniature Hereford, Charolais, Gelbvieh and Balancer, Angus, Red Angus, Hereford. Juniors usually show first and the open class follows. The Texas Longhorns show outdoors, south of the Expo Center, and the commercial heifers are penned on the same ground for the Commercial Heifer Classic Pen Show. In 2017 the Northern Ag Network put the Expo Center at 77,400 square feet and the cattle breeds shown there at 14. The junior swine, lamb, and goat shows are held in the Montana Pavilion, each followed by showmanship and breeding classes.

Spectators are admitted free to every event except those starred on the schedule, which require a paid ticket, a pass, or an invitation. A trade show fills the lower level of First Interstate Arena all week. Horsemen work the AQHA Ranching Heritage Challenge and an all-breed versatility ranch horse competition at Miller’s Horse Palace on several mornings. The NILE Gold Buckle Ranch Horse Futurities take the arena midweek. On the Monday and Tuesday mornings, the Billings Chamber of Commerce Ag Committee serves a free pancake breakfast in the Expo Center. From Monday through Wednesday, fourth-graders spend the whole day in the 4-H Building for the NILE’s agricultural education program. Older students from FFA and 4-H compete in livestock evaluation, sales and service, vet science, horse evaluation, and meat evaluation. In September the NILE asked the public to help judge those contests: “No experience necessary.”

The sale ring takes as much of the week as the show ring. On Monday the junior fed market champions are sold in the Pine Coulee Bulls Sale Arena at the Montana Pavilion. The 43rd annual NILE Red Angus Sale and the NILE Angus Select Female Sale are held there on Friday, October 16. The next morning the NILE Gold Buckle Select Horse Sale opens in First Interstate Arena, and the drawing for the NILE Raffle Horse is held during the sale. The NILE describes the Gold Buckle offering as more than 100 carefully vetted weanlings, yearlings, and performance horses. That Saturday evening the Open Supreme Row Parade and Show is held in the Expo Show Arena. The final selection of the Supreme Bull and Supreme Female is made later that night in First Interstate Arena, on the same program as the bareback riding.

Ranch teams on a Saturday night

The NILE advertises its Ranch Rodeo as “two action-packed nights of real working cowboys going head-to-head in events that simulate those on an actual working ranch.” The 2017 Northern Ag Network article named wild cow milking, team trailering, and team doctoring among its events. A preliminary round comes first, and the Finals follow on Saturday, October 10. The NILE gives the Finals start time as 7 p.m. MetraPark’s ticket listing gives 6:30. When the rodeo ends, at about 9:30 by the schedule, Kyle Shobe and the Walk ‘Em Boys play the Dance in the Dirt in First Interstate Arena.

The NILE added the Ranch Rodeo to its fall event in 2006. In 2009 it established the Ranch Rodeo Finals, which brought the winning teams from NILE-sanctioned ranch rodeos across the region to Billings to compete for the title of NILE series champion team. The format changed again in 2022. Since then the NILE has held its own preliminary round of 33 local ranch teams, and the top 10 earn a place in the Final round.

Twenty-four bareback riders

The professional rodeo at the 2026 NILE is the debut of The Riggin Masters, held on the nights of October 16 and 17 in First Interstate Arena. The top 24 PRCA bareback bronc riders in the world standings are scheduled to compete for a $100,000 purse. The NILE calls it a record-setting purse and calls the event the largest standalone bareback bronc riding event in the world. It is sanctioned as a PRCA Rank 45 Xtreme Broncs event. The field is expected to include the top 15 qualifiers for the 2026 National Finals Rodeo, who will ride in Billings before going on to Las Vegas. The event’s own promotion calls it “rodeo on steroids—and the most physical event in rodeo.”

Rodeo has been part of the NILE since the first year. The NILE’s history page describes the NILE ProRodeo as a PRCA-sanctioned event spanning three nights, which besides the arena action recognizes high school rodeo athletes, veterans, first responders, and breast cancer survivors. In 2017 the Northern Ag Network wrote that because the NILE rodeo comes early in the qualifying year, it often draws many of the top contestants in the PRCA.

A heifer kept for a year

On the afternoon of October 16, a Progeny Pen Parade in the Expo Show Arena is followed by the NILE Merit Heifer Show. Each heifer in that show was awarded a year earlier to a boy or girl between 12 and 16 years old who belongs to 4-H or FFA. Recipients are chosen on merit, future goals, and their ability to care for the animal. The recipient owns the heifer jointly with the NILE for a year. In that time the recipient raises her, arranges for her to be bred, keeps the required records, and brings her back to the NILE Stock Show as a bred replacement heifer. Once she is confirmed bred, the records are complete, and she has been shown, NILE officials sign off and the recipient takes full ownership. Program animals are not sold at the NILE. The program exists to start the recipient’s own herd.

The heifers are donated by ranches, and the recipients come from well beyond Montana. In the 2026 class, Katie Kolenosky of Perdue, Saskatchewan, received her heifer from DeBruycker Charolais of Choteau. Mason DeBolt of Medical Lake, Washington, received his from Blue Drifter Ranch of Baker City, Oregon. Maylea Dawson of Boulder, Montana, received hers from Triple Rafter Ranch of Jordan. Other recipients came from Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. On September 11, 2026, the NILE congratulated the Merit Heifer Class of 2027.

The program coordinator is Shelby Shaw, who also manages the livestock office and serves as director of youth education. She first came to the NILE as an intern in the fall of 2012. She was raised in Worden, and she and her husband, Ike, live there with their dogs, horses, and a small herd of cattle. The scholarships for interns, high school seniors, and college students, and the live-animal scholarships of the Merit Heifer Program, are funded through the NILE Foundation, a separate 501(c)3 whose president is Denver Gilbert.

From the Public Auction Yards, 1967

In 1966 the livestock committee of the Billings Chamber of Commerce began talking about an event to showcase the region’s livestock industry. It held the first one in 1967 at the Public Auction Yards in Billings, with livestock shows, horse shows, and a rodeo. By the fall of 1968 the NILE was a full livestock show with 250 exhibitors and 600 entries.

The organization later took on other events. The NILE says it was the first to host the elite Professional Bull Riders Series, which is held each April in Billings, and it counted 2023 as the 30th year of that partnership. In 2008 the NILE bought the Montana Agri-Trade Exposition, the MATE Show, a February trade show of farm and ranch equipment and technology. A Home and Health Expo was later added, and both shows are held together on the MetraPark grounds and are free to attend. The NILE marked 50 years in 2017. The Northern Ag Network’s anniversary article named it the Northern Invitational Livestock Exposition. The NILE’s own pages use Northern International.

The NILE is a 501(c)5 nonprofit. By its own account it is funded much as it was in 1967, through memberships from individuals and businesses and through sponsorships. Its board is drawn from Billings and from Laurel, Columbus, Molt, Musselshell, Joliet, and Fishtail. Scott Moran is president for 2026–2027. In February 2024 the board hired David Allen of Laurel, a native of Deadwood, South Dakota, as general manager. Allen had been the first National Media Director of PRCA ProRodeo. He had run sponsorships for NASCAR teams with Richard Childress, produced the Ty Murray Invitational PBR event in Albuquerque for 26 years, and served as CEO of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation until 2018. He has described the NILE’s territory in these words: “Billings and the market area from Wyoming to Canada and from the Missouri River to much of North and South Dakota represents our playground so to speak.”