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NFR back and bigger than ever after 1-year absence

By Patrick Everson Special to the Review-Journal
December 1, 2021 - 4:58 pm

Updated December 2, 2021 - 9:12 am

Over the past 36 years, Las Vegas and the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo have become inseparable. The city and the Super Bowl of rodeo were seemingly built for each other, proven by the annual 10-day event’s explosive and continued growth.

The NFR was a freight train of fun for attendees, and it provided a significant jolt to the city’s economy every December, a typically slow time.

Then came COVID, just as it did for pretty much everything else in 2020. The NFR still happened last December but was forced to move to Arlington, Texas. While the show went on, it certainly wasn’t the same.

Thankfully, that show is back where it belongs. Perhaps no one is happier than Las Vegas Events President Pat Christenson, whose fingerprints have been on the NFR pretty much since it first moved to the Thomas & Mack Center in 1985.

“It is a relief to be back from COVID,” Christenson said, while noting the NFR team took advantage of these past 24 months. “The fact that we really had two years to plan for this has given us the opportunity to make hundreds of small improvements and dozens of major improvements. Fans are going to see these improvements all around the city, not just at the Thomas Mack.”

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{NFR general manager Allen Rheinheimer} summed it up nicely.

“If you’re bored in Vegas during the NFR, you’re really not trying!”