Overview The Heart O' Texas Fair and Rodeo is Waco's fall fair, eleven days at the Extraco Events Center with eight nights of PRCA rodeo in the Coliseum, a concert stage, a carnival midway and a youth livestock show that took more than 8,500 entries in 2023. It is run by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission includes college scholarships for Texas students, and more than 600 volunteers work it year-round. The fair has run in Waco for more than 70 years. On site The rodeo goes off at 7 p.m. nightly in the Extraco Events Center Coliseum: saddle bronc, bareback, bull riding, steer wrestling, team roping, tie-down roping and barrel racing, with Mutton Bustin' and a calf scramble between the pro events and a stick-horse grand entry for the kids. Rodeo VIP runs through Tito's Hideout, suites and boxes, and the members-only Back Porch Club. Headliners play the ZiegenBock Music Stage late in the evening. The carnival is outdoors. The Show Pavilion's Glass Room holds a Wine and Beer Garden with acoustic sets, the Hometown Stage near the South Main Gate puts local dance and cheer groups on for eight nights, and the Kids Zone runs a petting zoo, a livestock birthing center, pony rides and joystick-driven excavators. Rodeo 101 does blacksmithing, duck-call making and ice cream churned on a 1917 engine. Audience A good share of the crowd is there to compete. Youth exhibitors show heifers, steers, lambs, goats and swine in the Show Pavilion and also enter public speaking, ag mechanics, junior livestock judging, a youth robotics challenge and trap shooting. Families fill the Kids Zone and the midway by day, and the rodeo and concert crowd arrives at night. Talent and Influencers The ZiegenBock stage books regional and national country acts; Midland and Jade Eagleson were on the 2025 bill. The lineup released for 2026 included Diamond Rio, Flatland Cavalry, Muscadine Bloodline, Kolby Cooper and Logan Ryan Band, with a Tejano night from Conjunto Rio Grande and a Southern soul night with 69 Boyz. Track record The scholarship program awarded $313,000 to 53 students in 2025, including a $25,000 top scholar award, and the livestock events added more than $110,000 in scholarships the same year. For 2026 the rodeo posted more than $450,000 in prize money across its eight performances. The fair puts its economic impact on Central Texas at more than $70 million a year. Brand presence Sponsorship is built around naming. One presenting sponsor puts its name on the whole fair for all eleven days, across its TV, radio and social advertising and on staff and volunteer apparel. Below that, five areas take presenting names - the rodeo, livestock show, music stage, shopping pavilion and midway - and in 2026 the rodeo ran as One HOT Rodeo presented by AgTrust Farm Credit and the livestock show was presented by Bar None Country Store. Daily attractions, parking lots and single rodeo events such as bull riding are sold the same way. Packages are customized, and the previous year's sponsors get first right of refusal.