The Days of ’47 Rodeo is from July 19-23 this year, held at the Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City.

The Days of ’47 Komatsu Equipment Rodeo features a number of fun activities for all ages to celebrate the Days of ’47 holiday. Plaza events, held from 4-7 pm each day, are open to the public and most activities are free! Events that will take place on the Vivint Smart Home Arena or at the Days of ’47 Rodeo include:

Championship rodeo competition
BBQ vendors on the plaza
Mechanical bull riding
Live concerts and dancing on the plaza
Mutton busting
Petting zoo with over 100 animals
And more!

We had the opportunity to attend and were given tickets to the upper stadium, general admission. Before I talk about seating and the cons there, I’d like to talk about the actual Rodeo and the pros.

PROS:

The Rodeo was great in that all of the events flowed well and it was everything I expected to see. Bull riding was last and was intense and exciting as usual. Only one rider stayed on for the full 8 seconds (the amount of time they needed to remain on the bull in order to place and have a score) which made it exciting.

My kids loved the barrel racing. I think my daughter loved it most because it was all women who were racing and that was fun to see.

My personal favorite had nothing to do with racing or scores at all. My favorite was this little entertainment part where a man rode out in this old truck with a horse tethered to the truck and 2 dogs on the top of the truck. The man showed how well this previously wild horse was not trained (it only took him 120 days!) and showed how the dogs were trained as well. What sent me over the edge was the fact that when they went to leave, the horse backed up onto the truck and sat on the bed of the truck as they drove out of the arena! I’m a sucker for well-trained animals.

Overall, the Rodeo was well done. The clowns talked, the audience was involved on the big screen, and the riders did a great job.

CONS:

I’m used to the small-city Rodeos where it’s a more intimate setting and I always try to get seats as close to the action as possible so being in the upper part of the stadium was not great. We had our two children, ages 6 and 4 with us and it was hard for them to follow what was happening at times and hard for them to see sometimes as well since we were so high up. We sat towards the lower part of the upper stadium because with little kids who like to climb and jump and move, I didn’t want to go too high (the upper part is general seating) but they just weren’t great seats. If you’re there just to be there and watch almost the entire thing on the big screens, then the upper general admission seats would be great. However, if you’re looking to actually see the Rodeo and feel like you can see everything, I’m guessing you want lower seats. We didn’t sit there, however, so we can’t guarantee that it’s more enjoyable from those seats.

If you’re looking for tickets for the weekend, visit the Days of ’47 Rodeo website.