Inside the Wild VIP Partying at Houston Rodeo’s World Championship Bar-B-Que Contest — The Cotton Q Club Rocks

Boot scootin’, beer guzzling and barbecue — could life be any sweeter during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo? Well, yes. When those three things are offered up in the Cotton Q Club tent, the biggest, baddest, best place to party during the World Championship Bar-B-Que Contest, which kicked off the rodeo this weekend.

With Cotton Holdings as lead sponsor of the barbecue competition, the logistics company’s hospitality effort naturally had to be the best.

In its fifth year, Cotton has continued its splashy approach to partying in a tent. Tartan plaid carpeting, crystal chandeliers and a gazillion red roses are standard decor. New for 2026 was the salute to the Year of the Horse with mini horses covered in roses hung from the tent ceiling. Added for VIP guests with the coveted wristbands that grant access to the luxe Golden Pony retreat was The Stirrup, a specialty martini bar in partnership with Sophie Cocktail & Terrace Bar.

The exclusive Golden Pony is where we parked most of the night, loving the plush furnishings, armloads of flowers, private bar service and the signature life-sized golden pony draped with a blanket of white roses.

“With Cotton and Quanta Services together, this just keeps growing and growing,” party host and Cotton Holdings founder and chairman Pete Bell says. “Getting everybody together and networking whether its clients or friends, giving back to Houston is exactly what we do.”

Quanta partners with Cotton in hosting the event thus the name Cotton Q Club.

“Most importantly Cotton gives back to disaster recovery. And this mirrors exactly what we do for business,” Bell notes. “So whenever we can do anything involving philanthropy and giving back that’s what we love, that’s our culture.”

Once again the colorful fashionista and Cotton Holdings executive vice president of marketing & branding Zinat Ahmed was the creative force behind the festivities. As is Ahmed’s tradition, she made multiple extraordinary costume changes across all three nights of the barbecue cookoff.

Cotton Culinary once again provided its stellar buffet of traditional Western-inspired dishes, cooking up brisket, sausage, chicken and even turkey with all the expected sides. No one among the 800 partygoers who passed through each of the three nights went home hungry.

The Cotton team constructed this amazing 5,000-square-foot structure in a matter of eight days. Surprising? Not so, according to Bell.

“Cotton Holdings is a logistics company so we’re also disaster recovery. So we know how to do things really quick,” he says. “We’ve rebuilt buildings in 24 hours to get people back in business.”

What would a party be without entertainment? Gabby Barrett held the stage on Thursday, Sammy Kershaw opened and Josh Turner headlined on Friday, and Braxton Keith took the stage on Saturday. When those guys weren’t on stage, the DJ kept the rocking country tunes whirling.

Joining Bell as the most VIPs of the VIPs were Sanette and Duke Austin, president and CEO of Quanta Services; Debra and Johnny Slaughter, president and co-CEO of Cotton Holdings; and Margaret and Chris Sneck, co-CEO of Cotton Holdings.

PC Seen: RodeoHouston president and CEO Chris Boleman and board chair Pat Mann Phillips, Jeff Hildebrand, Bun B, Houston Texans Pro Football Hall of Famer Andre Johnson, Blake Feritta, Tony Bradfield, James Scaife, Kevin Freeman, Russell and Stacey White, Jeff and Kristen Erler, Dawn and Ed Buckingham,  Elizabeth Kurpis, Tara Martin, Heather Almond, Morgan Hale, Teressa Foglia and Ty Hays, Lyndsey Zorich, Ceron, Kaleta Blaffer Johnson, Hailey and Jacob Daniels, Kailey and Paul Fletcher, Suzanne Droese, Whitney and Marc Lawson, Nicki Keenan, Scott Marshall, Mike Cavendar, Will Anderson, Bernard Freeman and Angela Walls-Freeman.