What is the Arizona National Livestock Show?
The Arizona National Livestock Show is a five-day competitive stock show, the largest in the Southwest, held at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix in the last days of December since 1948, on December 27 to 31 in recent years. About 1,000 pigs, 800 sheep, 800 goats and 400 cattle come through the barns, most of them led by exhibitors aged 8 to 20 from some 35 states, competing for roughly $240,000 in premiums. The 79th show runs December 27–31, 2026, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and admission is free.
It is the week nobody else wants. Christmas is over, the Barrett-Jackson tents are not yet up at WestWorld, and the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show is seven weeks away. Into that gap the Arizona National brings stock trailers from Texas, Oklahoma and California, families who have raised a steer since spring, stock dogs working sheep in the Grandstand Arena and, on Cattlemen’s Day, a ranch rodeo in which working cowboys compete at the chores they do for a living.
For a Scottsdale visitor it is the most authentic Western event on the Valley calendar and the cheapest. It is 25 minutes from Old Town at 19th Avenue and McDowell, the same 80 acres that host the Arizona State Fair each October, and it is the right place to see what the Western heritage Scottsdale markets actually looks like when it is not a show for tourists.
How to do it
Pick your day by the schedule. The 2025 schedule, which the show repeats with small changes each year, ran like this. December 27 and 28 are load-in, check-in and orientations, with the stock dog trials at 9:30 each morning the only thing worth a trip. December 29 is junior showmanship in every species from 8 a.m. and a youth ranch rodeo at 2 p.m. December 30 is Cattlemen’s Day: the ranch rodeo at 10 a.m. in the Grandstand Arena, a barbecue at noon, the Replacement Heifer and Bull Sale at 1:30 and the Arizona National Gilt Sale at 6. December 31 opens with the Open Cattle Show at 8 and the Junior Market Steer Show at 8:30 in the Bud Webb Memorial Show Ring, and the Grand Champion Market Drive at 4 p.m. decides the best animal of the week before everyone leaves for New Year’s Eve.
Getting there. From Scottsdale take Loop 202 west to the 51 or Interstate 10, exit 19th Avenue and go north to McDowell; the fairgrounds entrances are on 17th Avenue at McDowell and on 19th Avenue at Monte Vista. Parking is in the fairgrounds lots. The Valley Metro light rail does not reach the fairgrounds; the closest station is at 19th Avenue and Camelback, three miles north.
Bring the kids to the Farm Experience. It runs the Wrangler Roundup, a goat scramble, dummy roping and the Li’l Buckaroo Rodeo at set times each afternoon, and a Farming Simulator video-game tournament for the ones who would rather hold a controller than a halter. The barns are open; ask before touching an animal, and do not stand in a show ring aisle when a 1,300-pound steer is coming through.
Eat and drink. The Hacienda bar is open until 8 p.m. on December 28, 29 and 30 and until 6 on the last day, and the concession row is standard fairgrounds food. For something better, Central Avenue is ten minutes east.
What to skip. Do not come on December 27 expecting a show; the gates are open mostly for exhibitors. Do not expect a carnival, either. This is a working show, and the midway is a mercantile of boots, tack and feed.
From the Phoenix Stock Show to the Arizona National
In June 1948 a group of Valley businessmen met to organize a livestock show for Phoenix and elected a board: Frank Snell as president, E. Ray Cowden and John Jacobs as vice presidents, and Frank Armer, Valley National Bank’s livestock field man, as secretary-treasurer. A 1952 Arizona Highways account has Read Mullan, Ben Projan and Howard Pyle, then a radio executive and soon governor, pounding the pavements for pledges. The first Phoenix Stock Show opened at the state fairgrounds that December with 449 head of cattle from 42 exhibitors in five states and a junior division of six entries. It was a Hereford show at heart; Angus and Shorthorn breeders asked to show alongside, and the Herefords agreed.
The next show was held in January 1950, the dates settled into the last week of December, and in 1952 the name became the Arizona National Livestock Show to match the entries. The American Hereford Association made it a Register of Merit show in 1956, an Arizona-raised steer won grand champion in 1959 and a Quarter Horse show was added in 1964. By 1968, when Arizona Highways revisited it, the show had 1,800 cattle and 439 exhibitors from 24 states, Canada and Mexico, a calf scramble for boys of 12 to 18, college team roping and two visits from Miss America. It was, the magazine noted, the only major American stock show held mainly outdoors.
What it is now
The breeding cattle that built the show are still in the Open Cattle Barn, but the Arizona National today is a youth show. Executive director Tyler Grandil told Images Arizona that exhibitors call it a bucket-list event because it is the westernmost stop on the national circuit, and that the show is deliberately “exhibitor-centric”: about 120 volunteers, including veterinarians and veterinary students, keep 3,000 animals moving through the rings, and the premiums, roughly $240,000, go to the kids. Market animals are consigned to a packer at the end; the gilt sale and the replacement heifer and bull sale on Cattlemen’s Day are where the breeding stock changes hands. The horse show has moved out of the fairgrounds to WestWorld of Scottsdale, and the stock dog trials, the ranch rodeo and the Farm Experience have grown to give spectators something to watch between classes.
Why it belongs on a Scottsdale calendar
Scottsdale’s own rodeo, the Parada del Sol, is a March spectacle with bleachers and a beer garden. The Arizona National is the other end of the same culture: the 4-H and FFA families who raise the animals, the ranchers who buy the heifers, the stock dogs that do the actual work. It costs nothing, it happens in the one week of the winter when the resorts are full and the calendar is empty, and it is a far better answer to “what do we do on December 30” than another afternoon at the mall. Put it on the January side of a holiday visit as the opening act of the Western season that runs through the Arabian show, Western Week and the Parada del Sol.