General News
9 October, 2024
Mount Isa hasn't lost its love of rodeo, says GNR president
Mark Thompson hopes the city will turn out in droves on Saturday night.
Great Northern Rodeo Series founder and chair Mark “Tommo” Thompson says that Mount Isa will prove that it hasn’t lost its love of rodeo by filling Buchanan Park on Saturday night.
Following the financial failings of Isa Rodeo Ltd, it was suggested by chair Rowena McNally that the city was perhaps “bored with it”.
While Tommo said Saturday’s Great Northern Rodeo would be much smaller in size than the four-day Mount Isa Mines Rodeo, he said it was an opportunity for local residents to send a message to the Isa Rodeo Ltd board.
“Mount Isa hasn’t lost its love for rodeo; we just need to get back to basics and run an old-fashioned rodeo at good prices so they can all afford to come and have a good time,” he told North West Weekly.
“It’s $20 to get in for adults and our drink prices are cheap, at least compared to (the Isa Rodeo). We want people to come here, have a good night out and go home knowing it hasn’t cost them a fortune.”
The gates at Buchanan Park will open at 3pm on Saturday, with the first events to start around 4pm.
“We’ll run a lot of the junior events first up and then get into the proper rodeo stuff,” Tommo said.
“We want to be done by 9pm so that the crowd can enjoy Luke Geiger and the band.”
The Great Northern Rodeo is an APRA-sanctioned event and will be staged at a peculiar time on the rodeo calendar. Technically, competitors in Mount Isa this weekend will earn points towards the 2025 APRA rankings as the 2024 season is done and dusted, with the national finals to be staged in Gracemere next month.
However, that won’t stop some of the best cowboys and barrel racers from making the trip to the North West.
“We’ve definitely got a few great cowboys coming out here,” Tommo said.
“We’ve got some Australian champions so it’ll definitely have some very good competition and it’ll be great entertainment for the crowd.”
Tommo said the previous Great Northern Rodeo event, held earlier this year, attracted around 1500 paying attendees.
“We didn’t know how many we would get; we thought it could be around 700 and then 1500 turned up,” he said.
“We’d like that number again, but I reckon we might get a few more as the weather is really good – it’s not hot at night so it’s very comfortable for spectators.”