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Dolly, Creed, and ZZ Top: 20 artists that should play RodeoHouston in 2026

It's time for George Strait to return to RodeoHouston.

Photo by D. Foster

Now that the horses are back in the barn, the cows are back on the pasture, and the carnival is heading down the highway, we can start making our picks for RodeoHouston performers in 2026.

The 2025 season was marked by amazing Houston weather from start to finish, the grand debuts of Zach Top and Post Malone, a short and fiery set by Journey, and, oddly enough, no record concert crowds to beat out last year’s Jonas Brothers attendance of more than 75,000. No one cracked 72,000 in 2025, even though a handful came very close.

On Saturday, total attendance on the grounds was 199,220, a new single-day attendance record dating back to 2003. That included the Brooks & Dunn concert, too. Overall, HLSR set a new attendance record in 2025, with more than 2.7 million people through the gates (this month’s excellent weather certainly helped).

The lineup will be released in January 2026, but for now, here are our picks for next season without regard to budget or artist availability. (Editor’s note: Even though Craig went 0 for 10 last year, we think it's fun to contemplate who might be performing next year.)

Dolly Parton
It’s absurd that Parton hasn’t played Houston proper since December 2016 and hasn’t graced the rodeo stage since March 5, 1978. Other big acts on the schedule that year? Johnny Cash with June Carter and Conway Twitty with Loretta Lynn. While Parton still continues to make new music with the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, she’s said she’s done touring aside from special shows. Well, RodeoHouston is pretty dang special, we think.

Lainey Wilson
Wilson wowed me in 2024 and turned in the best performance on the schedule. By late 2025 and early 2026, she should also have some new material on tap.

Creed
In 2024, Creed’s alt-rock contemporaries Nickelback attracted a crowd of just over 75,000. This is a no-brainer for the elderly millennials and the Generation Alpha kids who can’t remember how badly we hated Creed throughout most of the 2000s. Come back, Scott Stapp; all is forgiven.

Los Tigres Del Norte
“Go Tejano Day” legends, they pulled in record audiences in 2019 and 2024.

Bun B
The unofficial mayor of Houston’s Black Heritage Day show has become a RodeoHouston institution. Bun is quickly becoming a lock for the Star Trail of Fame. What would he pull out for his fifth straight performance? There’s always Kendrick…

Megan Moroney
I had Moroney on my list for 2025, but she didn’t make the cut. She’s had one of the biggest years of anyone in country music, and this would be another notch in her blue belt. Kenny Chesney can vouch for her, too.

Chris Stapleton
Stapleton’s RodeoHouston appearances are easily some of the most impeccable performances of any season. The only pity is that they are only slightly over an hour long. I could watch him for six hours.

Zach Bryan
Bryan sold out NRG Stadium just last summer, and he’s now a stadium act. With ZB in town, the dive bars in Montrose and Midtown would be on high alert. We could see him posted up at Two Headed Dog, easy.

Sierra Ferrell
I would love to hear “Fox Hunt” coming from that rodeo stage. If you know, you know. She’s guested on some of the biggest albums of the past few years, and she’s beyond ready to stake her claim at RodeoHouston.

Zach Top
Top made quite the impression in 2025 and had one of the year's biggest crowds. There’s nowhere for Top to go but…farther to the top.

Morgan Wallen
Wallen has never played RodeoHouston. He might be too massive for the rodeo at this point, but this would be an easy sellout.

ZZ Top
Billy and Frank haven’t played RodeoHouston since 2017. Sadly, Dusty Hill won’t be with the boys this time around, but his spirit will undoubtedly be dancing in the aisles.

Cody Johnson
Hometown boy Johnson has a sturdy sound made for RodeoHouston. This would be his fifth time on the revolving stage.

Shania Twain
Can RodeoHouston pry Twain away from the Las Vegas strip? She last played RodeoHouston in 1999. That seems prehistoric.

The Red Clay Strays
One of the biggest success stories of the past year would attract a crowd as big as Turnpike Troubadours did in 2023 when they pulled in 74,657 true believers.

Journey
We’ll probably need to make up for the 2025 electrical fire under the stage sometime.

Shaboozey
It was a surprise that RodeoHouston didn’t land Shaboozey in 2025. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has been the most ubiquitous song throughout the NRG complex this year. I swear I heard it on repeat at the carnival one Friday afternoon.

Teddy Swims
One of the best new voices in pop, a Friday night show from the Atlanta native would kill during spring break. He’d also nail a George Strait cover.

Nate Smith
With nearly 9 million listeners on Spotify — that’s good, right? — he could be an ideal weekday draw.

George Strait
King George’s influence was constant in 2025, with several artists, like Charley Crockett and Post Malone, putting their own spins on his classics. He’s not played NRG Stadium since 2022, so we’re due.

concert rodeohouston

Movie Review

Cookie Queens goes behind the scenes of Girl Scout Cookie season

Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Girl Scouts in Cookie Queens.

Few people are strong enough to resist the lure of Girl Scout cookie season every year, with the cookies’ limited availability and unique flavors a strong incentive to indulge. But only the girls and their families who have sold the cookies know the joys and stresses of trying to get people to buy them, a process that is detailed in the new documentary, Cookie Queens.

The film by documentarian Alysa Nahmias uses the stories of four different girls to represent the nationwide ritual for the Girl Scouts. They include 12-year-old Olive in Charlotte, North Carolina, a longtime top seller; 8-year-old Shannon Elizabeth in El Paso, Texas, who wants to earn the reward of going to camp; 5-year-old Ara in San Diego, California, whose goal is modest compared to most other girls; and 9-year-old Nikki in Chino, California, who has to compete with her older sisters in the cookie-selling bonanza.

The girls represent a cross-section of both ages and backgrounds, with some girls coming from wealthy families and some girls dealing with more limited means. And how much money your family has makes a big difference, as not only does someone richer have more freedom with their time and supplies, but all scouts are required to reimburse the organization for every box they take in, regardless of whether they’re able to sell it or not.

That caveat makes the journeys of the four featured girls feel wildly different. It’s clear from the start that Olive and Nikki’s families don’t give a second thought to the personal economics of selling cookies, with each girl taking in thousands of boxes at the beginning of the six-week selling season. With both Olive and Nikki rightfully confident that they’ll have no problem offloading their supply, their stories turn to how selling is personally affecting them, with each trying to reconcile the fun of doing it with the pressure they feel from their family members.

Shannon Elizabeth’s story is more harrowing, as her parents feel a strong desire to help her accomplish her lofty goal, but worry that the cost might literally be too high for the family as a whole. More than once, the parents are shown fretting that they won’t have the money to pay back what they owe should they fall significantly short in their sales. Their selling approach, which includes walking through an empty swap meet and standing outside a chain restaurant at night, only adds to their stress.

The most fun story to watch is that of Ara, whose innocence is matched by her confidence. Her parents teach her how much money they’ll owe with her small goal of 55 boxes, but right away she takes on more responsibility than expected. She’s shown making sales pitches and tallying the total number of boxes she’s sold with little-to-no help from either her mom or dad. With her high voice, glasses, and a monitor on her arm to manage her diabetes, she becomes the cute and sympathetic part of the film.

There are times that the film starts to feel more than a little manipulative, however. While many of the moments documented come off as organic, some of them seem like Nahmias is actively guiding the participants in order to get a better story. This is especially evident with Shannon Elizabeth and her family, whose early struggles turn into a miraculous feel-good story by the end, a turnaround that seems implausible at best. Everything with them might have been aboveboard, but Nahmias and her team edit the family’s journey in a way that pushes a bit too hard for emotion.

Cookie Queens, which was produced by a company owned by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, helps to give insight into the business of selling Girl Scout cookies for those who’ve only been on the purchasing end of the transaction. The dedication of each girl toward selling their allotted supply proves fun and interesting, even if the filmmaker tries to gild the lily on occasion.

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Cookie Queens is now playing in theaters,

movies girl scout cookie film