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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

Chris Rock’s Misty Green is a funny, excruciating look at Hollywood

Photo courtesy of A24

Rosalind Eleazar in Misty Green.

For every well-known/successful actor in Hollywood, there are thousands of others whose lives are more tenuous as they struggle to find work. The new film Misty Green is about one such actor who, after a period in the limelight, now finds herself on the outskirts of the industry, just hoping to find her way back in.

Misty (Rosalind Eleazar) won an Emmy for a 2000s-era TV show that still gets her recognition, but not much work. Still living in the apartment of a recently-deceased man with whom she was having an affair, Misty spends her days sleeping in and her nights getting blitzed on alcohol and drugs. She seems to be heading nowhere fast until a few things coincide to break up her routine.

The man’s wife (Amy Landecker) shows up and tells her she has seven days to vacate the apartment; Misty’s brother, Jay (Daniel Kaluuya) — who is bipolar — arrives after being kicked out of his facility for non-payment; and Jordan (Chris Rock), a former colleague with whom she had a falling-out, reappears in her life, offering a possible chance to rehabilitate her image.

Written and directed by Rock (his first feature since 2014’s Top Five), the film is a funny and excruciating look at how the entertainment industry might actually work. Misty is her own worst enemy thanks to late nights fraternizing with unsavory characters like Zach (Adam Driver), who deals in drugs and women in equal measure, but her frustration proves warranted when her agent, Randy (Topher Grace), and casting directors like Rhonda (Tracie Thoms) hardly give her the time of day.

Misty tries her best to stay positive, but when jobs like singing in a bar are the best she can do, the mountain seems insurmountable. Rock does an effective job of demonstrating the elements that are within and without Misty’s control that affect her ability to regain her position in the industry. The chip on her shoulder is almost as big as the bias some have against her, and other negative circumstances don’t help matters much.

There are many small touches that Rock and his crew put in the film to give it an air of authenticity. Filming in Los Angeles (a rarity these days), Rock uses both subtle and overt shots of homeless people in the city, suggesting that the line between the haves and have-nots is a fine one, especially with Misty on the verge of not having a place to live. He also has cameos from a few of his funny friends, including a bit of meta-casting of Anthony Anderson (who has faded a bit after starring in Black-ish) in a bit part as a cop.

Eleazar, a British actor best known for appearing on the Apple TV show Slow Horses, is a magnetic presence as Misty. The character herself is somewhat cringey in her decision-making, and Eleazar sells every bit of her righteous indignation and self-defeating actions. The supporting cast is great across the board, including Rock, Driver, Kaluuya, Thoms, Grace, Anna Kendrick, and Rich Sommer.

Misty Green makes you rage against the Hollywood machine, laugh at the various ways different people deal with its maddening quirks, and hide behind your fingers as Misty chooses options that don’t help, either voluntarily or because her back is against the wall. It’s a powerhouse of acting that gives a unique angle on the inner workings of Hollywood, one that ironically might be competing for awards at year’s end.

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Misty Green is now playing in theaters.

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