San Angelo Rodeo Flexes Muscle, Keeps April Dates for 2022

SAN ANGELO, TX -- With this year's rodeo in the rearview mirror, the San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo Association is looking to next year's event. With increased prize money, the San Angelo Rodeo will be held later in the year, in April 2022, again.

In 2021, the association opted to split the rodeo into two parts -- the Livestock show in February and the Rodeo and Midway in April because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As planning began for the 90th annual Stock Show and Rodeo, the committee voted once again to split the events in 2022.

"With the success of the April event in 2021, the Association will hold the 2022 Rodeo and Midway events April 1- April 17, 2022," said the association in a statement. "The increased prize money to the rodeo payout for 2021, will be a large incentive for contestants to continue to make their rounds to San Angelo. Furthermore, the April weather looks to be more promising for families attending the midway functions.

According to the association, even though the livestock show faced complications from a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm and the water crisis, both events benefited from having a split schedule.

While an official schedule has not been released at this time, the Livestock Show is expected to run from February 3 to February 20, 2022.

"There are many pieces that comprise the entire puzzle for the San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo. As staff and board members continue to meet and make decisions for the 2022 event please be patient as information is released in coming weeks," the Rodeo Association stated in a press release.

For years, the San Angelo Rodeo was forced to move its date earlier in the season — into a cold February — to compete for participation of rodeo athletes also in demand at the metro area rodeos in Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic changed the competitive landscape, turning more restrictive crowd sizes cause by Covid-19 restrictions in the urban areas into a liability. This opened the door for San Angelo, where every government official, Shannon Health, and the health authority worked closely together to quickly mitigate the pandemic (with high availability of vaccines primarily) in order hold the rodeo later this year, allowing enough time for Covid-19 to be less of a danger. It worked. The there was no Covid-19 outbreak connected with San Angelo's 2021 rodeo. Meanwhile urban city rodeos, like Rodeo Houston, were canceled this year.

Here are the dates for those rodeos in 2022:

• Rodeo Houston: Feb. 28 - March 20, 2022
• San Antonio Rodeo: Feb. 10-27, 2022
• Fort Worth Rodeo: Jan. 14 - Feb. 5, 2022