American Royal Complex

Attended the National Junior Angus Show hosted here at the American Royal complex n 2022. The facility is well maintained and there are a lot of great options available for families who wanted something unique to do on the 4th of July.The facility offers plenty of space for vendors, lots of history for people who want to know more about what the future of ranching looks like, and it really is setup for anything you want to do in showing livestock. This is a great event location, and being able to attend NJAS was fantastic.

Great venue for events! We love coming here for the Mopaca event each year, the BBQ tastings, and the rodeos. So fun!

Here at the American Quarter Horse Show in the Hale Arena! The event is free, exciting and air-conditioned!

Apologies for the time that this review takes up space on the home page...it's probably not of great interest to most folks, and I confess it's part filler for the 100 Review Challenge (#95!). Not even sure what I'm reviewing-the facility itself, the event, or the shameful way the American Royal Association is letting it die.I was bitten by a zebra at the Kansas City Zoo when I was two, and my parents have blamed that for my lifelong obsession with horses and the fact that I now own one of those lovable money pits. And for dragging them to the American Royal every November since I was about nine. The facility has changed a lot for the better since those days of the old AR building. Kemper Arena may be a dinosaur for concerts, but it's a great place to show a horse. Hale Arena is good for smaller shows, and the benefits of stabling your horse in air conditioning in July, or staying under cover in the rain, cannot be understated. The Governor's Building provides an attractive space for vendors, and the museum there is worth the dollar admission to spend 15 or 20 minutes browsing through the history of the event.Unfortunately, the event itself has suffered, partly from changing culture and declining interest in our cowtown heritage, but also from an organization that seems to have given up getting people to come. When I was a kid, you not only got to see a horse show, but the livestock show was going on at the same time, and there was a concert and some other attraction in the middle of the show. Now it's all strung out from late September to late November, and everything is separate; consequently, there's less attraction for the general public and the audience is limited to mostly the participants themselves. Worse, there's virtually no advertising or publicity for anything but the barbecue contest anymore, so attendance continues to fall. It's a damn shame. On an up note, however, the number and quality of entries in the UPHA Saddle Horse show has been up this year, so maybe there's hope. Because the American Royal is all about what made Kansas City what it is.

The Kansas Royal annual kids event was awesome! Plenty of animals to pet, pony rides, blowup jumper houses and obstacle courses, pig races, face painting, etc... Highly recommend for the little ones!