Welcome

On behalf of everyone from the Sundance Association for Country-Western Dancing, we welcome you to the Sundance Reno Round-Up, the dance arm of the 2025 World Gay Rodeo Finals. The Sundance Association was invited by the IGRA to produce the dance events at the WGRF to help celebrate the kick-off to the celebration of 50 years of gay rodeo, recalling a time when country-western dancing was an integral part of the gay rodeo experience.

The Sundance Reno Round-Up is modeled after the storied Sundance Stompede weekend in San Francisco which ended in 2023 after a 27-year history. We are so excited for this unique opportunity to host our international country-western dance community once more, and also to welcome the 30th annual convention of the International Association of Gay/Lesbian Country-Western Dance Clubs.

The Sundance Reno Round-Up, like the Stompede that preceded it, strives to be exceptionally welcoming and inclusive, with the goal of expanding our global community. Keep this in mind as you navigate through the weekend. Please don’t be shy. Ask a stranger (or two, or fifty) to dance!

The Sundance Reno Round-Up has been created by our community for our community, produced and staffed entirely by volunteers. Everyone, including the directors, committee staff, DJs, instructors, and event staff, has given the gift of their time to create this magical weekend. We are indebted to the support of our volunteers and donors, without which this weekend would not have been possible.

We hope you have a great time this weekend. We are so happy you could join us. Let’s dance!

~ The Sundance Reno Round-Up Committee

About the Sundance Reno Round-Up

The Sundance Reno Round-Up evolved from an invitation to the Sundance Association for Country-Western Dancing from the International Gay Rodeo Association to help the IGRA include country-western dancing as a part of the 2025 World Gay Rodeo Finals.

In the 1990s, country-western dancing was a huge part of the gay rodeo circuit, and in its heyday the largest rodeos attracted thousands of attendees. (In 2001 the Sundance Stompede was created in part to mimic a rodeo weekend without the rodeo.) In 2025 the WGRF would be kicking off the 50th year of gay rodeo and returning to Reno, Nevada, the location of the very first gay rodeo in 1975. To help celebrate, the IGRA wanted to recreate the glory days when country-western dancing was such an integral part of rodeo weekends.

Initial plans to support a night or two of dancing quickly grew into a full-fledged Stompede-like weekend. With the IGRA handling the administrative work, including hotel, registration, and finances, the Sundance Association could focus on the creative aspects of the weekend: the dance events, workshops, and exhibition performances. The Sundance Stompede ended in part because the amount of work to produce it had become unsustainable. But now, what had become overwhelming suddenly seemed manageable, and the Sundance Reno Round-Up took shape.

Stompede founder and co-director Ingu Yun is still at the helm, with a mix of new and prior committee members from the Stompede years. While the architecture of the Sundance Reno Round-Up is similar to the Stompede, it will not be exactly the same, as the Round-Up is a sub-event within the larger WGRF event, and ultimately controlled and financed by the IGRA (who have been very deferential and responsive to our needs). But we fully expect that the strong sense of community will remain, along with our culture of welcoming and inclusiveness, because we know our attendees will make it so.

The Sundance Reno Round-Up will be a one-time event – one more chance to reproduce the same joyous feeling we experienced at the Sundance Stompede. We are so happy for you to be a part of it.