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Country is having a global glow-up moment, and Australia is right there in the saddle!

Warwick Rodeo & Gold Cup

Key Facts:

Warwick Rodeo & Gold Cup Campdraft

Monday 20 to Sunday 26 October

TICKETS HERE: Campdraft - Warwick Show & Rodeo Society

Country goes global — and Australia’s riding shotgun

 

• From booming rodeos to sold-out festivals and record streams, to “cowboy-core” wardrobes and arena sports, country culture is booming. Just this week, Post Malone unveiled his debut collection in Paris and featured a cowboy on horseback closing the show!
• QUEENSLAND is right in the middle of the dirt of this movement – home to the two biggest rodeos in the country in Mount Isa and in October, Warwick, plus the world’s biggest campdraft!
• The Warwick Rodeo & Gold Cup Campdraft runs from October 27 to November 2, 2025.
• Four of the country’s most talented young bull riders – Queensland brothers Macaulie and Boston Leather, fellow Queenslander Thomas Triplett and Jack Brodrick from Bungendore in NSW – were recently drafted to coveted spots in top-tier PBR (Professional Bull Riding) American teams.
• While Queensland’s Brady Fielder rides for the Texas Rattlers and is currently in contention for the world’s top bull riding title – the Gold Buckle (the last time an Australian won this was 28 years ago).
• More imagery and interviews available on request.

 

 

Country isn’t niche anymore, it’s mainstream, monetised, and multi-platformed. Music streams are rocketing; festival gates are breaking records; fashion runways are covered in Western boots and country shirts; rodeos are like the honeypots for bees, and PBR Australia is selling out from Tamworth to Townsville.

 

Country is trending up, and Warwick Gold Cup and Rodeo sits at the intersection. Warwick is the closest major rodeo-plus-campdraft experience to a capital city, an easy drive from Brisbane, where fans can do it all in one weekend: arena action, street atmosphere, and a fashion-forward crowd in boots and brim. The Warwick Gold Cup and Rodeo pairs a top-tier rodeo with campdrafting, a sport born in the Australian bush and found nowhere else. Just last month the legendary Mount Isa Mines Rodeo welcomed a new presenting partner in fellow iconic brand AKUBRA (which is enjoying a love-country surge in demand), as well as over 700 nominations to ride, huge crowds over three days and a line-up of the country’s best cowboys and cowgirls. The entire city was full, there not a spare room within 300km, and that includes swags!

 

Country goes mainstream

Once seen as a niche subculture, country is now everywhere. Streaming services report double-digit growth for country music, with genre-bending artists like Zach Bryan and Beyoncé pulling in new fans by the millions. Australia’s own Tamworth Country Music Festival pulled over 300,000 people in January, and CMC Rocks Queensland welcomed almost 24,000 fans, 94% of them travelling in. And it doesn’t stop at music. From cowboy boots on Paris runways to “cowboy-core” clogging TikTok feeds, Western style is driving a global fashion moment.

 

Rodeos rewriting the record books

In the arena, country’s surge is even more obvious. Globally, events like the Calgary Stampede and RodeoHouston are setting all-time attendance records. Closer to home, the Mount Isa Mines Rodeo roared back in August with its biggest crowds in years—cementing its place as Australia’s largest rodeo and a pilgrimage for fans, competitors and stock contractors alike.

 

If Mount Isa is the spiritual heart of rodeo in Australia, Warwick is its heritage home. Held since 1857, the Warwick Rodeo & Gold Cup Campdraft is one of Australia’s oldest and most storied rodeos. It combines world-class rodeo action with the most prestigious campdraft in the country—the Gold Cup, often called the Melbourne Cup of campdrafting. With $370,000 in prize money up for grabs in 2025, Warwick draws the nation’s best riders, stock, and fans, all within easy reach of Brisbane. Rodeo arena thrills, campdraft precision, live music, street parties—it’s where Queensland country culture is on full display.

 

MAKING COUNTRY COOL….

 

Music: record streams, crossovers, sell-outs

• Country was one of the fastest-growing streaming genres in 2023, with on-demand audio streams topping 20 billion in the U.S., up ~24% YoY, and momentum carried into 2024 (Newsweek)
• Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter smashed platform records on release, debuting at No. 1 and becoming the first album by a Black woman to top Billboard’s Top Country Albums, proof the genre’s boundaries (and audience) are widening (People.comABC News)
• In Australia, the recorded music market logged a sixth straight year of growth in 2024, a backdrop to the rise of country tours and festivals here (AriaAusleisure)
• US country power voice Luke Combs just finished a SOLD OUT STADIUM tour in Australia. IN Brisbane, his two Suncorp Stadium concerts sold out in MINUTES.  Accor Stadium’s two concerts  in Sydney similarly sold out in under 10 minutes, as did Marvel Stadium in Melbourne. These were part of a record-breaking first-ever national stadium tour by a country artist in Australia.

 

Festivals: the gates don’t lie

• Tamworth Country Music Festival 2025 drew 300,000+ across 10 days, cementing its status as Australia’s biggest country festival.
• CMC Rocks QLD 2024 attracted almost 24,000 visitors, with 94% from outside Ipswich, proving it to be a tourism engine as much as a music event.
• Globally, the Calgary Stampede 2024 set an all-time attendance record of ~1.48 million, while Rodeo Houston 2024 drew 2.55 million across its 23-day program (CityNews CalgaryGlobal NewsFOX 26 HoustonKHOU 11 News)
• Brisbane’s Royal Queensland Show, affectionately called  Ekka, drew its biggest crowd in nearly two decades this year. Over nine days (August 9–17), more than 425,000 visitors passed through the gates, making Ekka 2025 the most successful since 2008.

 

Fashion: cowboy-core goes couture (and retail)

• Western silhouettes are everywhere, from Louis Vuitton runways to high-street racks, and “cowboy-core” headlines 2024–25 trend lists.
• Market analysts peg the global cowboy-boots category at ~US$270–290M in 2024, tracking ~6.8–7% CAGR into the next decade, signalling durable demand – IT’S NOT A FAD – cowboy fashion is part of the mainstream fashion DNA ( HypebaeForbesGlobal Growth InsightsMAXIMIZE MARKET RESEARCH)

 

Arenas & arenas: rodeo and the Aussie original, campdrafting

• The National Finals Rodeo (Las Vegas) logged 157,580 in-arena attendees across nine sold-out rounds (2023), underscoring rodeo’s premium ticket pull.
• In Australia, the Warwick Gold Cup & Rodeo pairs one of the nation’s best-known rodeos with the most prestigious campdraft in the country, offering ~$370,000 in prize money in 2025. It’s campdrafting’s “Melbourne Cup”—a sport uniquely Australian in origin, distilled from stock work on vast rural properties.
• Queensland’s rodeo calendar remains heavyweight—from the revived Mount Isa Mines Rodeo to regional events that anchor visitor nights and spend. ABC

 

The Warwick Rodeo & Gold Cup Campdraft runs from October 27 to November 2, 2025.

Love your rodeo and campdraft? The buckles, the boots, the belts and hats? The power of the horses and the grit of the riders? The dust, the action, and the roar of the crowd? Then saddle up, folks, because the final week of October is when the world-famous Warwick Rodeo and Gold Cup Campdraft takes over, just two hours from Brisbane, in an experience you’ll never forget.

 

Known as the ‘Melbourne Cup’ of campdrafting, the Warwick Gold Cup celebrates a sport born from Australia’s legendary stockmen and women, making it the nation’s most prestigious event of its kind, and drawing more riders and prize money than any other. With a $370,000 prize pool, bespoke saddles, gleaming trophies, and an array of awards, it’s long been regarded as the Australian Championship Campdraft, where the best of the best go head-to-head with the finest stock in the country. Then add a world class rodeo!! Every October, the Warwick Gold Cup runs alongside the legendary Warwick Rodeo, where the nation’s top cowboys take on champion broncs and bucking bulls. 30,000 people are expected to attend this year along with riders from every mainland state. Immortalised in song by country music great Buddy Williams in the 1940s, the Warwick Rodeo carries a proud tradition of horsemanship, set in a town famed for its historic sandstone buildings, rose gardens, and wide, tree-lined streets.

 

TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW, with organisers urging fans to buy theirs, and organise accommodation as the week is set to fill this year as all things country takes over!

 

A HISTORY ETCHED IN DIRT AND GRIT

Horse-breaking competitions were recorded at Canning Downs as far back as 1857, on the very first station settled in Queensland in 1840, just east of where Warwick now stands. Australia’s first ‘official’ rodeo was held at Gayndah, Qld, in 1897, and Warwick’s own debut came in 1906 as a Bushman’s Carnival at Queen’s Park Showgrounds. It’s been held ever since, pausing only for floods, drought, war, not even Equine Influenza could halt the cattle events. By the 1930s, bigger prize money and more contestants saw Warwick Rodeo recognised as the Australian Championships. Back then, riders brought their own bucking horses, tying them to a central snubbing post, blindfolding them for mounting, and letting them loose when ready.  The wilder the buck, the higher the score. As demand grew, Warwick began assembling its own string of broncs, with legendary secretary E.J. “Ned” Portley travelling far and wide during the Great Depression to buy the best. These Warwick buckjumpers became so famous they were sent by train to Sydney’s Royal Easter Show, Brisbane’s Ekka, Rockhampton’s Rocky Round-Up, and beyond. The era of the committee-owned broncs lasted until 1982, when contract bucking stock began replacing the half-wild local mobs. But Warwick’s rodeo spirit had already been immortalised, from Buddy Williams’ 1945 recording Heading for the Warwick Rodeo to hosting the Australian Championships in 1947. By 1955, Warwick Rodeo proudly adopted the title: Australia’s Most Famous.

 

THE AUSTRALIAN SPORT OF CAMPDRAFTING 

Founded in the skills of Australian stockmen and women working cattle on vast rural properties, campdrafting has grown from an essential bush skill into one of the country’s most uniquely Australian competitions. It combines horsemanship, courage, and instinct with the deep knowledge of working cattle, and it remains a sport you’ll only find on Australian soil. Unlike rodeo events, which trace their roots to American cowboy traditions, campdrafting is entirely homegrown,  an Australian invention that celebrates the everyday skills of stockmen and women in a competitive setting.

 

Australia’s richest  Campdraft - The Warwick Gold Cup is Australia’s most prestigious campdraft, and in 2022, the prizemoney reached record heights. Across all five campdrafts held during Warwick Rodeo, a massive $246,000 in cash and trophies was on offer, making them the richest in the country. The Gold Cup alone awarded $78,385, including $25,000 to the winner, a $15,500 Trevor Young handmade gold cup, and an $8,000 Tony Gifford saddle, courtesy of major sponsor Prydes Easifeed. Other highlights included $64,000 for the Canning Downs Campdraft, $15,750 for the Ladies Silver Cup, $21,000 for the Frasers Livestock Transport Stallion ’Draft, and $26,250 for the Champion of Champions, all boosted by high-value trophy saddles and silverware. With rodeo prizemoney adding another $74,500, Warwick’s combined campdraft and rodeo program stands as one of the richest and most sought-after competitions in the nation.

 

Warwick Rodeo & Gold Cup Campdraft

Monday 20 to Sunday 26 October

TICKETS HERE: Campdraft - Warwick Show & Rodeo Society

 

Contact details:

Kath Rose on [email protected] or 0416 291 493