‘65-year-old institution’: Mount Isa Mines Rodeo enters voluntary administration

The Mount Isa Mines Rodeo has entered voluntary administration after a shocker 2024 event where crowd numbers were 40 per cent less than expected.

Mount Isa Rodeo 2024.

In a classic situation of boom-and-bust, the Mount Isa Mines Rodeo has entered voluntary administration after a shocker 2024 rodeo where crowd numbers were 40 per cent less than expected.

The gap between money being outlaid and actual income left the rodeo looking for a $500,000 bailout from the government in September that never came.

On Monday, October 21, SV Partners broke the news about the rodeo and announced they’d been appointed as the voluntary administrators.

“Mount Isa Rodeo, a 65-year-old institution, has today announced that it has entered voluntary administration,” SV Partners said.

“This decision comes in response to financial pressures, including lower than expected ticket sales for 2024.”

Mount Isa Rodeo 2024.

The rodeo business includes the Mount Isa Mines Indigenous Rodeo Championships.

Mount Isa locals have in the past criticised the new direction of the rodeo ever since it was incorporated in 2019 and started expanding to deal with growing insurance costs.

SV Partners said they will now begin work resolving the debt, restructuring the organisation and securing a “more sustainable future” for the iconic event.

Photographs of the first Mount Isa Rodeo in September, 1959. Picture: Mount Isa Mines Photographic Collection.

SV Partners director Michael Brennan said options on the table include selling the business.

“We hope this is not the end of the Mount Isa Rodeo, but rather a second chance,” Mr Brennan said.

In September the Queensland Government rejected a $500,000 bailout request for support from the Mount Isa Rotary Board, after the rodeo in August suffered a 40 per cent decline in crowd numbers from the previous year.

The rodeo’s chairwoman Rowena McNally thanked the Bulletin for contacting her, but referred the matter to Mr Brennan.

But at the time the time the bailout was denied she said that the major event drew in more than $15m from outside the city.

“We’re looking at several million dollars to put on a big show like rodeo over four days, but in return you get this five-six-seven times that in return to the area of visitation … which is really important,” she said.

“I do hear, we’ve all heard, about bringing it back to a little style rodeo and that’s fine, anyone can do that, there’s already those rodeos in Mount Isa that come through.

“They’re all great but you’re only cannibalising local money, because you’re not going to get people to come miles and miles and bring dollars with them.”

Mount Isa outfitter Worn Out West owner Hannah Hacon said the community could tell the major event was not running as well as it used to, judging from declining attendance numbers.

“We could all tell that there was something terribly wrong and the gate fees and the costs to attend certainly contributed to that.

“We could certainly see there had to be some sort of correction, something to get it back to where it should be, but I didn’t think it would go into voluntary administration, put it that way.

“I thought we would have been able to sort something out before it got to this, but here we are.”

Mrs Hacon believed the community could rally together to hold a Mount Isa rodeo next year.

“In what capacity, it may not be all the bells and whistles, but I think the community will support this and rally behind it.

“I don’t know the ins and outs though.”

Former long-running board member, and a former rodeo chairman, Darren Campi said it was “very disappointing” what had happened, but said he was uncertain what had led to the decision.

“I really have no comment on that, I have no idea, because I don’t know, simple as that.”

Mr Campi had been on the board when the last rodeo was held in August, and he said he had resigned because “it was time for new blood” after being involved in the major event for 13 years.

Mount Isa historian Kim Maree Burton said she was furious about the decisions of the Mount Isa Rodeo board and staff, particularly from the past decade, which she said had not included the community.

“The moment they moved the office from Mount Isa to Brisbane, there’s been no engagement locally, and the locals, the only way that they’re not happy is by not attending,” she said.

“And when you have a $99 or $106 entry fee, not everyone gets big money out here.”

WHAT THIS MEANS:

Employees: All employee entitlements, including wages, are protected under Australia law.

Creditors: SV Partners will be in contact. A creditors meeting will be held on October 31, 2024.

Sponsors: SV Partners will be in contact regarding the opportunity to continue supporting the rodeo going forward.

Originally published as ‘65-year-old institution’: Mount Isa Mines Rodeo enters voluntary administration