Sellout crowd of 3500 enjoys rollicking weekend at Mullewa Muster and Rodeo

Mullewa mustered up a cracking day of outback thrills and spills for its annual muster and rodeo on Saturday.

The 11th annual event was a sellout with competitors travelling from around Australia.

The muster is a celebration of country life, bringing together the best of the bush, rodeo action, country music and good old fashioned, family-friendly fun.

A total of 3500 festival-goers travelled from across the State, basking in the the unseasonably warm day, donning their best leather boots, denim jeans and cowboy hats, with many choosing to spend the long weekend camping under the stars.

About 100 people eager for the experience were forced to be on standby for tickets.

On the crowd, Mullewa Muster organiser Caitlin Bryant said: “We’ve seen a really big demographic shift over the last three years, post-COVID we have started to appeal to a much younger crowd.

“It’s definitely that Tik-Tok generation, country and western is so popular at the moment, we were worried that maybe it was a trend, but then you sell out three years in a row and it only gets more popular.”

Billed as the wildest weekend of the year, the muster did not disappoint with Saturday showcasing barrel racing, steer wrestling and the high action bull riding thrilling the crowd in the rodeo arena.

Three-year-old Ruby Saunders of Geraldton competed in the local junior barrel race event. Mum Hannah Saunders said she was “very excited and went super duper fast” setting a personal best of 37 seconds. Ruby will throw her hat in the ring for the WA rodeo mini princess pageant starting in October.

As the sun set the crowd flocked to the main field to party the night away at the country music festival.

Ms Bryant spoke of the balance between the rodeo and festival crowd, with headline acts Christie Lamb and DJ set Ruben Styles from Peking Duck the perfect way to finish the night.

“The rodeo is obviously the drawcard, but it just had such a fun festival vibe and the lineup. I think was just spot on for the crowd,” she said.

The main event at the rodeo ground was the open bull ride, with a purse of $4000, which was won by NSW cowboy Ty Parkinson.