By Richard Dyer
Twitter: @RHDyer

The Roots N’ Boots Queen Creek Rodeo with its seven classic events --- saddle bronc, bareback, bulls, barrel racing, team roping, calf roping and steer wrestling --- is March 12-15.

Presented by Banner Ironwood Medical Center, the multi-day event offers a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeo, vendors, carnival, entertainment and family activities for all ages --- all at Horseshoe Park and Equestrian Center, 20464 E. Riggs Road, Queen Creek. Go to RootsnBoots.org.

The PRCA Rodeo is 7 p.m. Friday, March 13 and Saturday, March 14. A 3 p.m. matinée is Sunday, March 15.

The 2020 PRCA Rodeo tickets are $16.50 per adult general admission and $8 for children 12 and under. A family pack including two adult and two children general admission tickets is $40. Box seats are $25 each and box seats or general admission for active military and veterans --- one ticket per valid military ID --- is $10. Gates open two hours prior to the start of each rodeo performance. Go to rootsnboots.org/shop-tickets/rodeo-tickets.

New in 2020

Changes for the 10th anniversary of Roots N’ Boots Queen Creek include electronic ticketing, Thursday night bull riding, a specialty act, a barrelman and adding an event for high school-aged, non-pro competitors.

“What we were looking for was opportunities to improve the event for this 10th anniversary. We’re always trying new things and typically we try to be very conservative in our budgeting. For the 10th anniversary, we said we should let loose a little bit and do some things to jazz up this 10th anniversary,” Jon Wooten, president of the nonprofit Friends of Horseshoe Park, said.

“We’ve added Thursday night bull riding. That gives folks that either can’t make a weekend event or just want to see bull riding --- that gives them an opportunity,” he said.

“It also gives people the opportunity that --- because it’s a flat fee for adults and children --- the ability to sit anywhere in the facility. So, whereas for the full performances, sitting down low on the seats with the backs is a $25 ticket, so the Thursday night bull riding it’s just $15 for adults and they can sit anywhere they want --- as close or as far away,” he said.

Parking will be free for the Thursday night bull-riding event, Mr. Wooten said.

With the new electronic ticketing, tickets are sold online only. Tickets --- hard copy or from a phone --- will be scanned and once a ticket is scanned it cannot be used again.

“In the past we’ve had hard-paper tickets and we continued to run into distribution questions, handling changes, the cost of printing tickets. Going to electronic ticketing allows us to sell them all at our website so we have control of that. It reduces the cost of the tickets --- we don’t have to print paper tickets. We’re hoping it makes entry into the rodeo easier because we just scan the QR code from the ticket,” Mr. Wooten said.

Tickets will be sold at the rodeo grounds the day of the events if they are available, he said.

The online ticketing allows people to buy tickets right up until they’re no longer available.

“Even when they are in line, waiting to park, they can be watching our website and seeing how many tickets are remaining and they can buy them there on their phone, sitting in traffic,” Mr. Wooten said.

Also new this year is entertainment from a specialty act --- the Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls --- at the full PRCA performances Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“You can think of them as a halftime show,” Mr. Wooten said. “They are a world-famous female trick-riding group. Very well known, very impressive show,” he said.

The rodeo has also hired a barrelman, Cody Sosebee, he said.

“They used to be called clowns, but now they’re called barrelmen, who brings some good acts. He’s part of the entertainment, but he also is part of saving the bull riders,” Mr. Wooten said.

A high school rodeo event has been added for athletes who are not part of the professional rodeo.

“We have some high school rodeo kids who come and compete in some of the events --- at their own level. They’re not competing with the pros, but they’re competing within themselves, giving them some experience in a professional rodeo. We’re continuing that. So we’re trying to increase the community involvement in the pro rodeo,” Mr. Wooten said.

22,000 attended in 2019

About 22,000 people attended the Friday-Sunday 2019 Roots N’ Boots Queen Creek, which was a 5,000-person increase from 2018, partly because of good weather, Mr. Wooten said.

“There’s a number of events that happen in the southeast Valley --- ostrich fest, there are events in AJ that go on --- so a lot of it has to do with weather, what else is going on that weekend. Our attendance has been going up year to year, but it’s been in the 1,000 to 2,000 range,” he said.

“Last year was the second year of an improved carnival, so by changing the carnival vendor we had better rides, more rides. We think that had something to do with it. We had a better attendance at our cornhole tournament, which brings additional competitors in. So I think there are a number of factors that played into it. But obviously we’re hoping those same factors apply this year too,” he said.

The number doesn’t include Thursday because attendance numbers are based primarily on vehicle traffic.

“Because we don’t charge for parking on Thursday --- Wednesday or Thursday --- we don’t count those cars in our calculations, Wednesday and Thursday are primarily community events,” he said.

Seating is limited at the arena and availability varies because of areas set aside for VIPs and sponsors, he said.

“Depending on the number of VIPs that we have at a given performance, their reserved seats kind of come and go. But 2,300 is probably a fair number of seats we can put butts in,” he said.

“Some places can sell standing-room-only tickets until you can’t jam anybody in there. We can’t do that. So we are capped at the number of people that we can sell a ticket to. So, to have our attendance increase by 5,000 and yet we still sold out all three rodeo performances, means that more people are coming to enjoy the carnival and the vendors and the environment,” he said.

Richard Dyer
Managing Editor | East Valley
@RHDyer

rdyer@iniusa.org

Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia, Inc.. USA, since 1987. Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions. He also is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows