Whether this is your first year or your 50th at the National Western Stock Show, Rodeo & Horse Show, Colorado’s two-week tip of the cowboy hat to its Western heritage is no one-trick pony — there’s all kinds of fun to be had.
Admission — $7 to $12 depending on the day — buys entrance to 100 acres of ranch gear, cowpokes, fiddlers, intense competitions, chuck wagon taste tests, more than 15,000 beasts and fowl, and more.
For a higher price, there are specialty shows such as bull-riding, dancing horses, Wild West shows, Super Dogs and two to three rodeos a day.
The stock show begins Saturday and closes Jan. 24. Here are some tips to make the most of your day:
Plan ahead
The stock show’s schedule should be your first stop.
Some events you can catch almost every day, but there are special events such as the Mexican Extravaganza rodeo that only make a few appearances.
Various animals — poultry, sheep, alpaca, stock dogs, yak, bison and swine — also have their respective days in the limelight. But rest assured, there’s never a shortage of cows and horses in the stables and stockyards.
If avoiding crowds is a priority, then weekdays are the best.
If people-watching is your game, then the busy weekends are best.
Stock show rookies
Breeze past the long lines at the box office by picking up tickets when you’re grocery shopping. Any Front Range King Soopers from Pueblo to Cheyenne has tickets. Or get them at the Coors Field ticket office in Lower Downtown, or online at .
Once at the show, if you’re in doubt about what to do and where to find it, look for a person wearing a turquoise and black stock show vest. Hundreds of stock show volunteers love to give directions, advice and, frequently, a free piece of candy as a bonus.
The best strategy, if your legs are apt to tire, is to resist the temptation to shop first. Bear a right from the entrance past the box office, go outside and follow your nose down the hill to the stockyards, where livestock producers show their finest to potential buyers.
From there, wander back through the first-floor stables in Stadium Hall for more livestock, then upstairs to Exposition Hall and the Hall of Education, where there’s acres of shopping, snacks and, finally, seating.
Basement vendors in Expo Hall tend to be less crowded, making it easier to chat and more likely you’ll reap free samples of spices and snacks. It’s also a good place to buy a T-shirt about the virtues of potent bull semen.
When all three floors of Expo Hall are toured, head outside to the Denver Coliseum. Outdoor eateries peddle hearty portions of barbecue, hand-dipped foot-long corn dogs, turkey legs, kettle corn and fresh-squeezed lemonade.
On the cheap
The grounds admission includes access to vendors, the stockyards, the stables, livestock competitions, and countless educational displays and exhibitions.
Tickets to special performances such as rodeos and the Wild West Show sell at higher prices, but they include grounds admission, so it pays to buy a show ticket in advance and enjoy the rest of the sights before or after.
Ticketed weekday shows and daily rodeo matinees are cheaper than evening shows on the weekend.
Children 11 and younger can get free grounds admission this Saturday and Sunday with a voucher available at any Guaranty Bank and Trust location, with a limit of two kids per adult.
There’s also strength and savings in numbers. As few as 15 people can qualify for group discounts on grounds admission and most ticketed events.
Food prices also run the gamut — from $30 steak meals to free samples handed out by vendors, including nice-size bites of steak in Expo Hall.
The best dining deal at the show, however, is only on weekends in the Children’s Ranchland area upstairs from the Expo Hall, where $1 buys a hot dog.
The stock show is a haggler’s holiday. Negotiating the price is a Western tradition, and often an interesting spectator sport as everything from belt buckles to herds of cattle are bought and sold.
To get the best deals, wait until the last Sunday, Jan. 24, when vendors eye boxing up what’s left over. An offer 10 percent below the asking price is a standard bargain.
Here’s a guaranteed money-saver: Parking prices, which range from $20 to $8, are cheaper the farther away you are.
Because a free shuttle picks up show goers near their vehicles and drops them off at the Expo Hall box office door every five to 10 minutes, it’s often more convenient than parking in the pricier lots and walking uphill on sometimes-icy sidewalks to make it to the entrance.
Taking the tots
Do little kids dig the stock show? The cacophony of delighted squeals says yes.
The stables and stockyards teem with animals most city kids only see in coloring books and on TV.
Just inside the entrance to Expo Hall are cows and horses where children can pose for a photo. The Ames Activity Pavilion, the big white tent just outside Expo Hall, has a near-constant agenda of free events for little kids: stick-horse rodeos, pedal-tractor races, clowns, performing dogs and rodeo cowboys and queens.
Afternoon performances of the Wild West Show on Jan. 16 and Jan. 17, as well as Super Dogs on Jan. 18 and Jan. 19, are tailored for youngsters.
The Children’s Ranchland Area on the top floor of Expo Hall has pony rides, rabbits and chickens and even a jungle gym. Downstairs in the Hall of Education, there is a petting zoo with feed for the barnyard animals.
For kids who can’t get enough of the ponies, the Pony Trails exhibit on the ground floor of the Events Center offers for free lots of hands-on opportunities, as the real animals gallop and whinny in the warmup ring a few feet away.
Herding teens
The National Western draws thousands of 4-Hers, Future Farmers, an army of rodeo queens and hundreds of college students, mainly from Colorado State University, eager to talk about their ranching and rodeo interests.
City kids can learn a lot from ranch youth who care for their show animals as well as work their family farms and ranches.
“Tell me about that pig” is a typical ice-breaker.
There never seems to be a shortage of young people near the entrance for the cowboys and cowgirls at the chute area in the basement on the north side of the Coliseum.
The professional cowboys, cowgirls and rodeo clowns sign autographs and pose for pictures on their way in and tend to linger there after the shows.
Young adults with a taste for shopping will find plenty at the stock show they can’t find at the malls: real ranch-hand jeans and rodeo-style cowboy shirts and jackets, hand-shaped cowboy hats, and all manner of leather goods.
Seen it all?
For the old hands who have tromped the stockyards, bought a cowboy hat in Expo Hall, and eaten way too many funnel cakes, there’s the Stockyard Inn Saloon.
Tucked away by the rail yards on the backside of the stockyards, this no-frills brick saloon is a part honky tonk, part Depression-era annex to the historic Livestock Exchange building.
Here million-dollar deals are sealed over a beer and a handshake, and the discussions are always lively among authentic ranch hands, rodeo showmen, beef industry titans and land barons of the Western range.
The American and Mexican-style cuisine tends to have cowboy-size portions at reasonable prices, while drinks at the bar flow long each night.
As trite as it may sound, the best thing about the stock show is the people.
It’s rare to find a person who doesn’t love to talk about his or her animals, or fence products, or handmade jewelry, or what it’s like to live on a 10,000-acre spread.
Nowhere but the National Western Complex can you find as many interesting folks doing interesting things that they’re passionate about — all for about the price of a movie.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
