Stock photo by Laureen Carruthers via Getty Images
Louisiana lawmakers voted Thursday to spend $2 million in state money on the Hondo Rodeo Fest coming to the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans from April 10-12. The Hondo Rodeo Fest is a brand new event for New Orleans. Started in 2024, the first two years of the event took place at Chase Field in Phoenix. Hondo will include a rodeo competition with a $1 million purse prize, a street festival in Champions Square outside the Superdome and live country music concerts over the three days. Acts scheduled to perform include Jason Aldean, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cody Johnson, Old Dominion, Creed and Bailey Zimmerman. The 2025 event in Arizona sold 92,000 tickets and featured 76 rodeo contestants, according to information handed out to Louisiana lawmakers before the vote this week. In conjunction with the festival, food donations of ground hamburger meat will also be distributed in Louisiana through the 1017 Project, an Oregon-based nonprofit.
Jay Cicero, CEO of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, described Hondo as the “Super Bowl of rodeos” and expects it to attract the sport’s major stars. For years, Louisiana has used tax dollars to support large festivals and sporting events, but Gov. Jeff Landry is looking to diversify the types of attractions that come to the state, according to state Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois. A high-end rodeo competition will bring a new type of audience to New Orleans, she said. Hondo will also fill a blank space left in the New Orleans events calendar after Wrestlemania 42, which was supposed to come to the Superdome in April of 2026, relocated to Las Vegas…