Cowboy Christmas and NFR Las Vegas 2026
Cowboy Christmas fills the Las Vegas Convention Center and the National Finals Rodeo runs at Thomas and Mack, December 3 to 12, 2026. Where each one actually is, the concerts worth a night, the club calendar including Dustin Lynch at XS, and the dinners that pair with each show.
Cowboy Christmas and the NFR 2026: what is on, where to eat, and how the week actually works
Two things happen in Las Vegas between December 3 and 12, and most guides only tell you about one of them. The National Finals Rodeo is the ticketed event, ten rounds at the Thomas and Mack Center on the UNLV campus. Cowboy Christmas is the free one, a western gift show that takes over the Las Vegas Convention Center for the same stretch and pulls in people who never buy a rodeo ticket at all.
Between them they fill the city for ten days with a crowd that eats early, books big tables and does not behave like a normal December visitor. Our Las Vegas team books the dinners and the tables around them, and this is what the week looks like from the inside.
The short answer
- Cowboy Christmas is in the South Halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Free admission, no rodeo ticket needed.
- The NFR is at the Thomas and Mack Center, UNLV campus, about fifteen minutes south of the Strip. Ticketed, ten rounds.
- December 3 to 12, 2026. Concerts around town start earlier, from December 1.
- The biggest single night is Friday December 11, when Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean play Allegiant Stadium.
Where each one actually is
This trips people up every year, so it is worth being plain about it.
Cowboy Christmas sits in the South Halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, on Paradise Road at the north end of the Strip. It is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day of the run and admission is free.
That 4 p.m. close is the most useful thing to know about the whole week. The hall empties into the early evening every single day, which is why dinner reservations across this stretch go earlier and harder than a normal December, and why the good rooms are gone by the time most people think to call. The geography matters too when you are deciding where to eat, because the two properties nearest the hall are Fontainebleau across the street and Wynn and Encore a short walk south. Neither is where the rodeo crowd instinctively looks, and both are better than what they would otherwise settle for.
The NFR is nowhere near it. Thomas and Mack is on the UNLV campus, east of the Strip and south of the convention center, roughly fifteen minutes by car from either. Because you are already driving to the rodeo, dinner is wide open. Nothing on the Strip is meaningfully closer than anything else once you are heading that way, so pick the room you actually want rather than the one that looks convenient on a map.
What is on around town
Close to a hundred acts play the city across the twelve days, and most of them are bar and showroom filler. These are the ones worth planning a night around.
The headline nights
Friday, December 11 · Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean, Allegiant Stadium. One show, both names, and the single biggest draw of the run. Everything else that night moves around it.
December 4, 5, 11 and 12 · Eagles, Sphere. Four dates inside the window. Not a rodeo booking, but it is the hottest ticket in the city during the same week and worth knowing about before you commit a night.
Saturday and Friday · Riley Green, Resorts World Theatre, December 6 and 10. Two dates. If the name is familiar it may be because he played Country Splash in Cabo earlier this year, and a good number of the people who were on that beach are coming to this.
The rest, by property
Resorts World Theatre carries the strongest run of country in one building: Dwight Yoakam on the 3rd, Gary Allan on the 4th, Chris Young on the 5th, then Riley Green on the 6th and 10th.
The Colosseum at Caesars Palace takes Rascal Flatts on the 5th and Thomas Rhett on the 10th and 12th.
BleauLive Theater at Fontainebleau has Dierks Bentley on the 4th and 5th, then CREED on the 11th and 12th.
Encore Theater at Wynn runs Nate Bargatze from the 9th through the 12th, which is the comedy alternative if four straight nights of country is not the plan.
PH Live has Bailey Zimmerman on the 5th and Koe Wetzel on the 11th. MGM Grand Garden takes The Red Clay Strays on the 5th. The Theater at Virgin has Gavin Adcock on the 10th and Sam Barber on the 12th. Brooklyn Bowl gets Turnpike Troubadours on the 11th.
Beyond that you are into Gilley's, Ole Red and the Westgate bars, which run country most nights of the year and need no planning.
The nightclub calendar
The rodeo crowd is not the usual Strip nightclub crowd, and the honest read is that this is a show-and-dinner week more than a club week. But the December bills are strong on their own terms, and there is one booking that bridges the two worlds outright.
Saturday, December 12 · Diplo with Dustin Lynch at XS. This is the one. A country artist on a Strip nightclub bill on the closing Saturday of the NFR, and the only night in the run where the rodeo audience and the club audience are in the same room by design. If your group wants one night that feels like both trips at once, it is this.
The rest, worth planning around:
- Friday, December 4 · Alesso at Omnia, Kaskade at XS, Knock2 at LIV
- Saturday, December 5 · Zedd at Omnia, Diplo at XS
- Sunday, December 6 · Tao with DJ Franzen, and DESEO Latin Sundays at Omnia. Sunday is Tao's night and the better room of the two
- Friday, December 11 · Marshmello at XS. Same night as Allegiant, so this is the after rather than the instead
- Saturday, December 12 · Alesso back at Omnia alongside the XS bill
Two more at Zouk inside Resorts World: Redferrin on the 4th and Don Toliver on the 12th.
Midweek is quiet by Las Vegas standards. Monday the 7th and Tuesday the 8th are the two nights where a table is easy and the room is thin, which suits some groups fine.
Tables are booked directly with the venue, and we quote the exact minimum in writing before anyone commits. A twenty percent deposit is the citywide standard in Las Vegas.
Where to eat
The useful way to think about dinner this week is not by neighborhood but by where your night ends up.
If you are at Cowboy Christmas
You are at the convention center, and two properties are genuinely walkable.
Fontainebleau is directly across the street and holds the deepest cluster at that end: Mother Wolf for Roman food in a room that carries noise well, Don's Prime when it should be a steakhouse, Komodo and Papi Steak when the dinner is the event rather than the prelude. If your group is at BleauLive for Dierks Bentley or CREED, dinner and the show are the same building and you never touch a car.
Wynn and Encore are the short walk south. SW Steakhouse sits on the lake and is the safest booking of the week for a group that wants steak without a scene. Delilah is the one to take a group to when the dinner should feel like a night out on its own. Mizumi is the quiet counterpoint when not everyone wants beef for the fourth night running. Nate Bargatze is at Encore Theater from the 9th, so the same walk applies.
If your night is at Resorts World
Carversteak is in the building, and with Dwight Yoakam, Gary Allan, Chris Young and Riley Green all playing the Resorts World Theatre across the run, it is the dinner that needs no logistics at all. Book it early on Riley Green's nights, the 6th and the 10th, because that room fills from the theater.
If your night is at Caesars
Nobu and Peter Luger are both on property, which covers the two ends of what a group usually wants before Rascal Flatts on the 5th or Thomas Rhett on the 10th and 12th.
The one to book regardless
Golden Steer is off the Strip, has been open since 1958, and is the right room for this crowd in a way no new steakhouse manages. Red leather booths, tableside Caesar, the Sinatra room. It is not near the convention center and it is not near Thomas and Mack, and it does not matter, because everyone is driving anyway. It books out hard on event weeks, so this is the reservation to make first rather than last.
What to do now
The rodeo crowd books later than most and then finds the good rooms gone, particularly on the 11th and 12th when Allegiant and the closing Saturday land together.
Tell us the nights you are in town, the size of the group and whether you are here for the rodeo, the gift show or the concerts, and our Las Vegas team will put the week together: the dinners, the tables, and the transport between them if you need it. If a nightclub is not what the group is after, say so and we will point you at a speakeasy or a live music bar instead.
For everything else on while you are here, our Las Vegas events calendar lists every venue.
Build a custom itinerary with our concierge team. Pair the venues mentioned above into a single concierge-confirmed evening. See the full Las Vegas events calendar for every upcoming DJ and pool party across the city.
Las Vegas nightlife and pool guides
Bottle-service pricing and minimums
Exact table minimums and what is included, by venue:
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