"I think it's too late in the calendar to make a successful event at this time." That's what Tanner Bryson told the Camp Verde Town Council on July 29, and it wasn't a resident venting at public comment. Bryson said it as the person who'd just proposed running this year's Fort Verde Days rodeo himself, then pulled his own bid off the table in the same breath.
If you live in Camp Verde, you already know Fort Verde Days as the town's homecoming, the weekend built around the fort that gave the community its name. What you may not know is that the festival and the rodeo are, right now, two separate stories with two separate outcomes. One is settled. The other is not. Confusing them is going to leave some locals showing up in October expecting a rodeo that, as of this writing, nobody has actually agreed to hold.
What's Actually Confirmed
The festival itself isn't in question. This year marks the 70th Annual Fort Verde Days, and the schedule is set: Saturday, October 10 runs 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. with the parade kicking off at 10 a.m. on Main Street, and Sunday, October 11 runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fort Verde State Historic Park, which operates independently of the town's parks department, has its own lineup locked in too. Expect flag-raising ceremonies, artillery demonstrations, living history presentations with re-enactors, Dutch oven cooking, and military drills, the same mix that's defined the fort's contribution to the weekend for years.
None of that touches the piece everyone assumes comes bundled with it.
The Piece That's Actually Up in the Air
For the past several years, Fort Verde Days weekend has meant a full rodeo at the Camp Verde Equestrian Center, produced by the Camp Verde Arena Association, a volunteer nonprofit that built the arena's programming from the ground up. That arrangement ended on December 3, 2025, when the town canceled CVAA's lease, citing a lack of financial transparency and concerns tied to Arizona's constitutional Gift Clause, the provision that bars a town from handing money, credit, or use of public assets to a private association without getting a certifiable benefit back in return. CVAA was required to vacate the property by March 31, 2026. Management of the Equestrian Center passed to the town.
That left a hole heading into 2026, and the council spent its July 29 special session trying to figure out how to fill it. Two proposals were on the table: one from CVAA, asking to come back under a new arrangement, and one from Bryson Productions, run by Tanner Bryson, who'd just won a council seat in the July 21, 2026 primary. Bryson withdrew his own proposal at that meeting. His reasoning was practical, not political: producing a full rodeo from scratch inside a couple of months wasn't realistic, and he told the council the town should instead put its weight behind an event that already exists and already works, the Bull Bash.
That's the detail worth sitting with, because it flips the story from "the rodeo might disappear" to something closer to "the rodeo might just go back to what it was before."
The Bull Bash Isn't a Fallback, It's the Original
The Bull Bash is run annually by the Yavapai-Apache Nation and Cliff Castle Casino, and according to the same council discussion, it predates the CVAA-run rodeo entirely. CVAA president Mary Phelps has said her organization bore the cost of reviving a full Fort Verde Days rodeo six years ago. Before that revival, the Bull Bash was the event carrying the rodeo tradition for the community. Bryson's suggestion wasn't to invent a replacement. It was to stop trying to force a six-year-old model back into place on a compressed timeline and instead lean on the version that was already there first.
That doesn't mean the matter is closed. CVAA hasn't backed down. Through Mayor Marie Moore, the association laid out terms it wants in exchange for stepping back in: the right to host 20 events a year at the Equestrian Center, full control of the revenue from those events, a guaranteed slot running the Fort Verde Days Rodeo specifically, and the ability to sell alcohol and run concessions while the town handles vendor coordination. Phelps also pushed back hard on the town trademarking the name "Fort Verde Days Rodeo" without consulting CVAA first.
"Every Fort Verde Days Rodeo buckle has CVAA logo on it, and we want to continue putting on Fort Verde Days Rodeo," Phelps said, calling the trademark filing disingenuous to the group that revived the event in the first place.
The council didn't vote on either proposal at the July 29 session. Instead, members leaned toward forming a dedicated Equestrian Center commission, similar in structure to the town's Parks and Recreation or Planning and Zoning commissions, to collect public comment and make a recommendation before any final decision. Former mayor and outgoing county supervisor Dee Jenkins pushed for that commission to weigh recreation and community value alongside pure economics, arguing the town doesn't run Fort Verde Days to turn a profit but because, as she put it, it's the right thing to do for the community.
Why This Matters If You're Not Following Town Council
Most residents don't track council special sessions, and there's no reason you should have to. But if you're the kind of Camp Verde local who buys rodeo tickets early, plans a Friday night around the arena, or just assumes the weekend looks the way it did last October, this is the year to check before you assume. As of the town's early August meetings, no rodeo proposal has been approved for the Equestrian Center this Fort Verde Days weekend. The commission process is still forming. A final council vote hasn't happened.
What has already happened is the town reopening the Equestrian Center itself for public use, offering open ride opportunities to residents starting June 26, 2026, separate from any rodeo programming. That's worth knowing on its own: the arena isn't sitting empty while the governance question gets sorted out, it's already back in use for everyday riders even as the marquee event stays unresolved.
Here's the short version for your October calendar:
- Confirmed: Fort Verde Days festival, October 10 to 11, parade at 10 a.m. Saturday on Main Street, Fort Verde State Historic Park programming both days
- Confirmed: The Camp Verde Equestrian Center is open for public riding, separate from any rodeo event
- Unresolved as of early August: Whether a full rodeo happens at the Equestrian Center this year, and if so, whether it's CVAA-run or handled another way
- On the table: Town support for the Bull Bash, the older tradition that predates the CVAA rodeo, as the more realistic option for this year
- Still pending: Formation of an Equestrian Center commission and a final council vote
If the last several years trained you to expect a CVAA rodeo bolted onto the weekend automatically, this is the year that assumption doesn't hold. Watch the Town Council's agenda over the next few weeks, or keep an eye on local coverage, before you build plans around an event that hasn't been finalized.
Fort Verde Days will happen. The fort, the parade, the vendors, none of that is in question. What's still being worked out is whether the piece that's felt permanent for six years turns out to have been the newer addition all along, and whether the town's oldest rodeo tradition is about to reclaim its spot.
That's the kind of thing you only catch if you're paying attention to the town underneath the town, not just the listings for it. That's exactly the lens Jess Savoini brings to Camp Verde and the rest of Northern Arizona, whether the conversation is about a rodeo, a well, or the house down the road. If you've got questions about the area, or you're just the kind of person who likes knowing what's actually going on before October rolls around, Let's Connect.
