Ticket sales will begin in March, the Oakley City Council decided Dec. 11.
The two-week in-person presale is from March 3 to March 13, at Oakley City Hall during normal business hours Monday through Thursday.
Online ticket sales open and ADA-accessible seats become available March 17 at noon.
Tickets are $30 each with reserved seating. There’s a limit of 20 tickets per order.
Rodeo Committee Chair Wade Woolstenhulme said there about 5,700 seats in the city’s arena, which usually sell out.
“I think we're on board to have a very successful event again,” he said.
The events and schedule will be similar to last year when Oakley added an extra day for the Xtreme Bulls Tour.
The Xtreme Bulls purse is $35,000. The payout for all other events will be $20,000 each, and double that for doubles events.
The overall payout will be more than $300,000 again this year.
“Based on our success for this next year, if we did as well as we have done, we're going to probably start increasing the prize money incrementally,” Woolstenhulme said.
Seating is another element planned to increase over time. Oakley has hired a consultant to look at renovating the arena near the center of town.
Woolstenhulme said it may not have more seats, just bigger ones.
“Back when these seats were put in, they measured people's butts at 18 inches, and I don't think there's very many 18-inch butts anymore,” the rodeo chair said.
A new arena may include box seats and other options allowing for tiered ticket pricing.
The 2025 rodeo will see the return of Dallas-based livestock producer Pete Carr Pro Rodeo, part of the five-year contract Oakley signed in 2023.
“After this year, we'll probably start negotiating on some extensions, because we're pretty happy with them at this point,” Woolstenhulme said.
The 90th Annual Oakley Independence Day Rodeo runs from July 2 to July 5, beginning nightly at 7:30 p.m. The Xtreme Bulls Tour is July 7 also at 7:30 p.m.
