n 1931, seven men met for lunch at the Texas State Hotel, with the aim of launching the Houston Fat Stock Show and Livestock Exposition – which ended up first taking place the following year. With a goal to preserve the cattle industry along the Texas Gulf Coast area, the first show was held annually at the Sam Houston Hall – before it was demolished in 1937. With the hall rebuilt as the Sam Houston Coliseum before the 1938 edition, the event saw the addition of the rodeo, horse show and downtown parade to its itinerary. The forties waved in the introduction of the show’s first entertainer, Gene Autry (otherwise known as ‘the Singing Cowboy’), plus the calf scramble. This intriguingly named event occurs in the rodeo arena, with several young students outnumbering loose calves. Any student able to catch a calf receives a certificate to purchase a registered beef heifer or market steer, valid for redemption the following year. This familiar pattern continued, with extra events and entertainment
added over time until it was renamed the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR) in 1961. A move to Houston’s Astrodome was followed by a performance from Elvis Presley in the seventies, and the show only continued to increase in both scale and ambition. In the eighties, the state of Texas celebrated its 150th birthday with the show’s help. The HLSR also became one of the few institutions marked as an official organisation of the Texas Sesquicentennial Association. In the nineties, with visits from George Bush, Margaret Thatcher and other world leaders for the 16th G7 summit hosted in Houston, the event came to TV – and the same decade saw the introduction of the HLSR website. Throughout the past six years, the show has welcomed over two million people each year – a number that only continues to grow. THE STREAM TEAM Recent years have also seen entry into the livestreaming stratosphere. Last year was the event’s 90th
THROUGHOUT THE PAST SEVEN YEARS, THE SHOW HAS WELCOMED OVER TWO MILLION PEOPLE EACH YEAR, A NUMBER THAT ONLY CONTINUES TO GROW
IT’S A LIFESTYLE Streaming became imperative for the HLSR in order to serve its ever-growing community of supporters
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