The old Weber Arena is gone, and while construction is underway on the new Bilbrey Family Event Center, the Kansas State rodeo found a new location.

For the first time in many years, the competition was held at an outdoor venue: CiCo Park. The 69th annual K-State event was an adjustment for several reasons. 

“We’re in the transition year between Weber and the new indoor [center],” K-State Rodeo head coach Casy Winn said. 

Typically K-State’s rodeo is held in the spring semester, but the date was changed this year to Sept. 6-8. 

“So as of now, the new indoor is supposed to be done next year in time to have the rodeo back in February,” Winn said. “We had pretty good crowds [this year], not as good as Weber, but good crowds for being in September.”

Winn said the most recent projection of the new center’s completion is September 2025.

K-State’s rodeo team had two members do notably well. Stranton Oftedahl, junior in animal sciences and industry pre-veterinary medicine, won bulldogging while Chancy Johnson, senior in agribusiness marketing, won breakaway roping. Johnson is the rodeo club president. 

“So we had a good showing,” Winn said. “We have 38 competing team members this year, so the biggest team in a long time.”

Winn said the rodeo wasn’t always held in Weber Arena. 

“So way back when they had it in Ahern, because that under the basketball floor was dirt, really,” he said. “So they’d take the wooden basketball floor out. … They’d set up chutes, kind of like we did in Weber, but they actually hosted in Ahern for several years.”

The rodeo team marked down its final rodeo in Weber Arena in February 2024, and its demolition began in April, leaving Weber Hall as solely classroom space. 

Located off Denison Avenue by the Stanley Stout Center, the new event center is planned to host its first K-State rodeo in the spring of 2026. 

According to the K-State website, features of the new building will include:

• 130 feet by 250 feet arena with bleacher seating for 3,000 people
• Stock pens with bucking chutes and roping boxes
• Enclosed 80 feet by 80 feet staging area
• Covered wash area for horses and cattle, as well as 10 small livestock wash pens
• Manager’s office, meeting room, restrooms with showers and a security/first aid room
• An open lobby that features concessions and beverage sales
• Second-floor VIP area with windows overlooking the arena and staging area

Abby Muck, vice president of the rodeo team and junior in animal science, said having the rodeo at CiCo Park made things go more smoothly than in the past.

“That was a lot easier, because usually at Weber, we have to haul [animals] back and forth every time we need them, and you can’t always fit them all on one load,” Muck said. “You have to take multiple loads. So it was definitely really nice to be able to keep all the stock there instead of hauling it back and forth.”

Winn said the new center will mark a dramatic improvement for the rodeo team’s facilities. 

“We’ve worked with some professionals, people that have done it a lot to make sure it’s a really good setup,” he said. “As far as moving stock around, we’ll have lots of pins for that, and not having to go, like all the students camped here and then had to drive to CiCo park, or they camped here and they had to go to Weber. Once that building’s here, they’ll be able to camp here, and the rodeo will be here, so you don’t have to have riding and driving back and forth between two arenas. So that’ll be huge, as far as you know, safer, better for the contestants.”

Mike Day, K-State department head of Animal Sciences and Industry, said in a promotional video that the event center will round out the “animal science gateway campus.”

“[People will] really appreciate coming out there and not having to deal with campus parking,” Day said. 

Since the rodeo was held off-campus, a beer stand was available at this year’s event. Winn said he believes the new center may also be permitted to sell alcohol. 

“I’m guessing that they will be able to … I mean, it’s on campus, but not on campus,” Winn said. “They serve alcohol at Bill Snyder and Bramlage. And so I think if we, if we can meet the guidelines, you know, whatever those guidelines are, similar to Bramlage, then we will be able to.”

Winn said the new center will not be subject to online-only payments like Student Athletics. 

“Personally, I’ll fight that all I can,” Winn said. “I’m a cash kind of person.”

The K-State rodeo team is already continuing its season after its start in Manhattan, competing Sept. 12-14 at Colby, Kansas.