The 78^th annual Poly Royal Rodeo kicks off today with Cal Poly State University’s 11,000-seat Alex G. Spanos football stadium converted into a rodeo arena for the weekend in San Luis Obispo, California. 

Despite a rain-out last year for one of their performances, over 10,000 spectators attended the event, which is believed to be the largest college rodeo in the country according to Lucas Clark of The Tribune. 

The event atmosphere compares to a professional rodeo with its huge crowd, flashy stadium, and an Aaron Watson concert scheduled for Saturday night. 

"The community, the school, everybody's behind us this year and taking a lot of pride in our events," Cal Poly rodeo coach Ben Londo said to the Tribune. "We’re excited to put on a great show and share that with everybody."

Video of the 2017 arena setup from Cal Poly College of Agriculture, Food & Environmental Sciences.

Under Londo’s leadership, the Cal Poly Rodeo Team currently sits first in the women’s team standings for the West Coast region with an impressive 1,248.5-point lead on the second place team. The women’s team is also eighth in the national team standings, while the men’s team sits in the fifth spot for the region and is currently unranked in the national standings. 

Cassidy Barnes has played a big part of that rodeo team this year; the multi-event cowgirl is sitting second in the goat tying standings for the region with 678.5 points and 13th in the team roping standings (heeling) with 110 points. 

"It was just electric," Barnes told Scott Daniels of KSBY about the atmosphere of last year's event. "You walk in and there's just people everywhere, a solid wall that you can't even tell one person from another and it was the coolest thing I've ever been a part of."

The stage is set with no rain in the forecast for this year’s event at the moment, and anticipation building among the rodeo team. Fourth-year Cal Poly tie-down roper Clayton Combs, who competed in the event last year, looks forward to what this event may hold. 

"I just remember all the people," Combs, who is currently ranked 14th in the region with 107 points, said to the Tribune. "This year, I don't even know what to expect. We have more sponsors helping us out this year. It's just going to be a lot better."

The 2018 rodeo takes place April 13-14 with performances at 7 PM tonight and 5:30 PM tomorrow night.