The Ford Idaho Center is a complex of sports and entertainment venues in

Nampa The Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA) is the national news agency of the Republic of Namibia. It was founded in 1987 under the name Namibia Press Association as a SWAPO partisan press agency, and resuscitated after independence under its current name ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

, approximately west of

Boise Boise ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, there were 235,685 people residing in the city. Located on the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and nor ...

About

The Ford Idaho Center Arena is best known for

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaqu ...

. It annually hosts the Snake River Stampede, considered one of the nation's top rodeos, during the third week in July. The Stampede moved indoors to the Ford Arena in 1997; it was formerly held in an outdoor stadium (now demolished) near Lakeview Park. Since 1999, the

Professional Bull Riders The Professional Bull Riders, Inc. (PBR) is an international professional bull riding organization headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It is the largest bull riding league in the world, sanctioning hundreds of events every yea ...

(PBR) has hosted a

Built Ford Tough Series The Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS) was the Premier Series tour name of the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) competitions from 2003 through 2017. Inaugural season (2003) The BFTS kicked off its tour on November 16, 2002, with the Mohegan Sun Invita ...

(originally Bud Light Cup) event at the Ford Idaho Center in what has been a major stop of the tour. Ford Arena is used for concerts, trade shows, sporting events, and other events. It is the former home of the

Idaho Stampede Idaho ( ) is a landlocked state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west; the state s ...

, then of the

Continental Basketball Association The Continental Basketball Association (CBA), originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association, was a men's professional basketball m ...

from 1997 to 2005, and the

Idaho Stallions The Boise Stallions are a defunct indoor football team from Boise, Idaho. They were a charter member of the Indoor Professional Football League. They originally began as the Idaho Stallions. Throughout their three seasons, Larry Stovall-Moody ...

of the now defunct

Indoor Professional Football League The Indoor Professional Football League (IPFL) was the new incarnation of the Professional Indoor Football League (PIFL), which started in 1998. Two of its teams (the Madison Mad Dogs and the Green Bay Bombers) left the league and their owner ...

in their inaugural season of 1999. Ford Arena is the former home of the NAIA Division II men's basketball tournament. Upon its completion, the tournament moved to the Ford Idaho Center in 1998 from its former home on the campus of

Northwest Nazarene University Northwest Nazarene University (NNU) is a private Nazarene university in Nampa, Idaho. History Eugene Emerson organized a combination grade school and Bible school in 1913 as Idaho Holiness School. It was renamed twice in 1916, first to Nor ...

. The tournament moved in 2000 when NNU left the NAIA to join the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

in Division II.

History

In March 2004, the Ford Idaho Center Arena was the home court for the

Boise State Boise State University (BSU) is a public research university in Boise, Idaho, United States. Founded in 1932 by the Episcopal Church, it became an independent junior college in 1934 and has been awarding baccalaureate and master's degrees It ...

men's basketball team for a second-round matchup in the NIT against the UWM Panthers. The game was moved to the Ford Idaho Center due to a prior scheduled

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

concert at Boise State's

Taco Bell Arena ExtraMile Arena (formerly BSU Pavilion and Taco Bell Arena) is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the western United States, on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. It is located on the east end of campus, between West Campus L ...

. The game drew a crowd of 10,153, the largest for a basketball game in the arena's history. BSU and

played a non-conference basketball game at the arena on December 31, 2011; the Broncos won 76-73 before 7,540 spectators. The amphitheater opened on June 15, 1998, with a concert by

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

legend

Shania Twain Eilleen Regina "Shania" Twain ( ; born August 28, 1965) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She has sold over 100 million records, making her one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-selling music artists of all time and the best-sel ...

during her Come On Over Tour since then, it has held concerts by musicians such as

Tim McGraw Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer and actor. He has released 17 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, five for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those albums have reached number one on ...

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

Ben Harper Benjamin Charles Harper (born October 28, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music, and he is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, liv ...

, Jack Johnson and

James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the single "Fi ...

. The Ford Amphitheater has hosted music festivals, including the

Vans Warped Tour The Warped Tour is a touring rock music festival that toured the United States and Canada each summer from 1995 until 2019, and returned in 2025 for its 30th anniversary. By 2015, Warped was the largest traveling music festival in the United S ...

, the

Gigantour Gigantour was a sporadically organized traveling heavy metal music festival organized by Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. The tour was founded in 2005 with dates across North America (see also Gigantour 2005), and the 2006 and 2007 line-ups also trav ...

, the

Lilith Fair Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride (CEO), Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during ...

, and the

Mayhem Festival The Mayhem Festival is a metal festival that takes place during the summer. The inaugural season took place in 2008; the festival later became an annual event across the United States. Most years also included a single date in either Montreal or ...

Pearl Jam Pearl Jam is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. One of the key bands in the grunge, grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, ...

performed during their Binaural Tour on November 3, 2000, with

Supergrass Supergrass are an English rock band formed in 1993. For the majority of the band's tenure, the line-up consisted of brothers Gaz (lead vocals, guitar) and Rob Coombes (keyboards), Mick Quinn (bass, backing vocals) and Danny Goffey (drums, ...

as their opening act. The show was filmed and later released as a live album titled '' 11/3/00 – Boise, Idaho''.

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

played their first concert in the state of Idaho at the arena during their

A Bigger Bang Tour A Bigger Bang was a worldwide concert tour by the Rolling Stones which took place between August 2005 and August 2007, in support of their album '' A Bigger Bang''. At the time, it was the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning $558,255,52 ...

on Tuesday, November 14, 2006. Since its opening, the Ford Idaho Center has been the

Treasure Valley The Treasure Valley is a valley in the western United States, primarily in southwestern Idaho, where the Payette, Boise, Weiser, Malheur, and Owyhee rivers drain into the Snake River. It includes all the lowland areas from Vale in rural east ...

stop for the

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros., the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Barnum & Bailey, or simply Ringling, is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth ...

Disney on Ice Walt Disney's World on Ice is a series of touring ice shows produced by Feld Entertainment's Ice Follies And Holiday on Ice, Inc. division under agreement with The Walt Disney Company. Aimed primarily at children, the shows feature figure ska ...

and

Champions on Ice Champions on Ice was a touring ice show in the United States. The show featured a large cast of both professional and Olympic-eligible figure skaters along with novelty acts such as skating acrobats. The shows were focused primarily on solo pe ...

. On January 14, 2014, the City of Nampa announced

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

as the new title sponsor for the Idaho Center. As part of the deal, Ford will pay the city $1 million over five years. On July 14, 2016, rising

pop star A pop icon is a celebrity, character, or object whose exposure in popular culture is regarded as constituting a defining characteristic of a given society or era. The usage of the term is largely subjective since there are no definitively object ...

Meghan Trainor Meghan Elizabeth Trainor (born December 22, 1993) is an American singer-songwriter and television personality. She rose to prominence after signing with Epic Records in 2014 and releasing her debut single "All About That Bass", which reached ...

performed at the Ford Amphitheater with opening acts

Hailee Steinfeld Hailee Steinfeld (born December 11, 1996) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She had her breakthrough with the western film ''True Grit (2010 film), True Grit'' (2010), which earned her List of awards and nominations received by H ...

and

Common Kings Common Kings is an American, Hawaiian, and Samoan reggae rock/pop band from Orange County, California. The band's debut album, ''Lost in Paradise'', was nominated for a Grammy Award. History Formation (2011) Born in the South Pacific and raised ...

during her third headlining concert tour,

The Untouchable Tour The Untouchable Tour was the third headlining concert tour by American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor. It was launched in support of her second major-label studio album ''Thank You'' (2016), and consisted of concerts in North America and Eur ...

. Later that month, on July 26, 2016,

Korn Korn (stylized as KoЯn) is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, originally formed in 1993 by James Shaffer, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald Arvizu, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu and David Silveria, who were members of the band ...

and

Rob Zombie Robert Bartleh Cummings (born January 12, 1965), known professionally as Rob Zombie, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, filmmaker, and actor. His music and lyrics are notable for their horror and sci-fi themes, and his live show ...

headlined the amphitheater during their joint tour, Return of the Dreads Tour. Since 2019, the Center has been home to the Idaho Horsemen indoor football team, first in the

American West Football Conference The American West Football Conference (AWFC) was a professional indoor American football minor league created in 2018 by Platinum Events & Security, LLC, the owners of the Idaho Horsemen. The league's inaugural season was in 2019. Players were ...

and beginning in 2024 in the

National Arena League The National Arena League (NAL) is a professional indoor football league that began play in 2017. As of the end of the 2024 season, the league consisted of five teams. A team's typical payroll budget is $600,000 per season, but as of the 2022 ...

. Iconic

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

bands Blondie and

Garbage Garbage, trash (American English), rubbish (British English), or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or ...

teamed up for a joint tour and played the Ford Amphitheater on July 14, 2017, during the

Rage and Rapture Tour The Rage and Rapture Tour was a co-headlining concert tour by American new wave band Blondie and American rock band Garbage. It was launched in support of Blondie's eleventh studio album, ''Pollinator'' (2017), and Garbage's sixth studio album ...

John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used in the British, Canadian, and American legal systems, when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law ...

and

Exene Cervenka Exene Cervenka (born Christene Lee Cervenka; February 1, 1956) is an American singer, artist, and poet. She is best known for her work as a singer in the California punk rock band X. Music career The 21-year-old Cervenka met 23-year-old m ...

served as supporting acts. Seattle bands that have played the Ford venues include

Heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

in '03,

in 2000,

Alice in Chains Alice in Chains (often abbreviated as AiC) is an American rock band formed in Seattle in 1987. Since 2006, the band's lineup has comprised vocalist/guitarists Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall, bassist Mike Inez, and drummer Sean Kinney. Voca ...

in '13,

Foo Fighters The Foo Fighters are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Initially founded as a one-man project by former Nirvana (band), Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, the band comprises vocalist/guitarist Grohl, bassist Nate Mendel, gu ...

in '17, and

Death Cab for Cutie Death Cab for Cutie (commonly abbreviated to DCFC or Death Cab) is an American rock music, rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington, in 1997. Death Cab for Cutie's music has been classified as indie rock, indie pop, and alternative rock. The ...

in '21.

Venues

*Ford Arena *Ford Amphitheater : 10,500 *Ford Sports Park *Ford Idaho Horse Park Venues include an indoor

arena An arena is a large enclosed venue, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, Music, musical performances or Sport, sporting events. It comprises a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for specta ...

opened in 1997 with a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 12,279 and of floor space and a 10,500-seat outdoor

amphitheater An amphitheatre ( U.S. English: amphitheater) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ('), meaning "place for vie ...

opened in 1998 with a 60-by-40-foot stage. Additionally, the Ford Idaho Horse Park is used for horse shows and the Ford Sports Center is utilized for indoor track and field events, including the home meets of the

Boise State University Boise State University (BSU) is a Public university, public research university in Boise, Idaho, United States. Founded in 1932 by the Episcopal Church (United States), Episcopal Church, it became an independent junior college in 1934 and has b ...

Broncos A bucking horse is any breed of horse, male or female, with a propensity to buck. They have been, and still are, referred to by various names, including bronco, broncho, and roughstock. The harder they buck, the more desirable they are for ro ...

track teams. It features a 200-meter indoor track and hosted the 2012 NCAA Indoor Track Championships.

References

External links

Ford Idaho Center websiteIdaho Center Visitors Reviews
{{Coord, 43.608106, -116.508175, type:landmark, display=title Indoor arenas in Idaho Convention centers in Idaho Amphitheaters in the United States Sports venues in Idaho Buildings and structures in Canyon County, Idaho Nampa, Idaho Tourist attractions in Canyon County, Idaho 1997 establishments in Idaho Sports venues completed in 1997 Basketball venues in Idaho

About

History

Venues

See also

References

External links