SPRINGDALE -- The Rodeo of the Ozarks board voted unanimously, but reluctantly, Monday night to cancel the rodeo.
"Everybody at that table wanted to hold a rodeo," Director Steve Smith said after the meeting. "They did a lot work to have this rodeo.
"And we couldn't make it through the Health Department," he said with a laugh.
Rodeo directors last week submitted a map and a seating chart for placing fans at Parsons Stadium to the Arkansas Department of Health, but it wasn't approved, Smith said.
The board in the plan determined 2,500 tickets would need to be sold each night to make enough to present the rodeo, said Rick Culver, executive director. The board typically spends about $300,000 putting on the four-night rodeo, he said.
The rodeo typically sells $22,000 to $25,000 in tickets over four nights, Culver said.
"And I'm concerned that half of those people who we could sell tickets to wouldn't show up," said Sach Oliver, another member of the board. "Even if we do everything right, they might not be ready to get out in a group of 2,500."
Longtime director John Gladden said any performance this year would need to be the same "festive, top-notch rodeo we've always done."
Other local rodeos have canceled, including Old Fort Days in Fort Smith, said Director David Hoffarth.
"Others say they are operating at a three-year loss by having their rodeos," he said.
Smith said the Springdale rodeo finally feels recovery from losses in the 2208-2009 recession.
He said the board started in April trying to avoid the covid-19 by changing the dates from the last weekend in June to the last weekend in July.
This took coordination with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, which sanctions the annual Springdale rodeo and hundreds of others across the country and in Canada.
To afford putting on this year's show with the limited number of paying fans, the contract acts, clowns and even the stock contractor agreed to half of their payments, Smith said. The PRCA promised the Springdale rodeo $25,000 in support. The rodeo board also cut in half the prize money it would pay to winning riders.
With hundreds of rodeos canceled across the country, those rodeo support staff as well as the cowboys are looking for paychecks, said Kevin Lee of Siloam Springs, the rodeo's announcer who travels across country to announce and produce rodeos.
The rodeo runs in large part with sponsorships from local businesses. Smith said a few have suffered during closings related to the pandemic and asked for relief of their sponsorships, to which the rodeo agreed.
Rodeo directors remain hopeful the Aug. 22 Demolition Derby can continue as scheduled, which might bring in $40,000 to $50,000.
"We all are thinking with two brains tonight," said board President Joe Rollins as he called for a rare roll call vote. "We're thinking with our emotional brain and our business brain. Everybody here wants to have a rodeo. Everyone here has grown up around this rodeo. When I was 7 years old, I never thought I'd be the one making this call."
"There's no egg on our face, if we do this," said Director Kevin Riggins before the vote. "We're doing what everybody else in the country is doing -- canceling."