Chris LeDoux Days helped put Kaycee, Wyoming, on the map as an entertainment and rodeo destination with a 15-year tradition of celebrating one of Wyoming’s most famous country music stars.
Put on by LeDoux’s family, including his son Ned LeDoux — also a talented singer-songwriter — the event came to an end after last year, leaving fans to wonder what could take its place.
Turns out there was already a new festival in the works, even as Chris LeDoux Days was ending.
The co-founder of the new event — the Kaycee Outlaw Music Festival —is Douglas Sipe.
“We had wanted to get another little festival going beyond Chris LeDoux Days to bring in a little bit different music and a different crowd,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “So, we had already started thinking about that and loosely planning and slowly moving in that direction.”
When the group found out this past summer that Chris LeDoux Days would end, Sipe and his group realized it was time to kick their efforts into high gear.
“Chris LeDoux Days was not only a great party and a cool get-together for a lot of people, but it brought a lot of revenue into our little town of Kaycee,” Sipe said. “So, we wanted to help replace that revenue in our town.
"We also just wanted to keep the live music thing going here.”
Thanks to the almost perfect timing, Sipe's new festival will be ready for its inaugural run in 2026, meaning the little town of Kaycee won’t have to skip a beat when it comes to its annual tradition of big music in a tiny Wyoming town.
The idea appears to already be catching on. Sipe has been told both local campgrounds have been fully reserved for the summer, in part due to the new festival.
The timeframe for the new event will be the same as Chris LeDoux Days, though that was something of an accident.
“Last year, when we looked at the calendar, Father’s Day was like the 15th, 16th (of June), or whatever date that was,” he said. “So, we’re like, let’s move it to the weekend after that. So, we decided on the 20th and 21st.”
Later, the group learned that in 2026, that is actually the date of Father’s Day.
“That wasn’t really our intent,” he said.
But it was too late to turn back. The date was set, and some of the talent was already booked.
A Salute To Outlaw Music And Outlaw History
The new festival is named the Outlaw Music Festival as a salute to Kaycee history.
“We’re famous with the Red Wall, the Hole-in-the-Wall area, which is right outside of Kaycee,” Sipe said. “And so that was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and a lot of other outlaws were famous for being out in this area and supposedly hid out in the Hole in the Wall Area, which is just 20 miles from Kaycee.”
There’s also an “outlaw” country music scene that appealed to the festival creators.
“That old Johnny Cash and Waylon (Jennings), they weren’t always doing exactly what you would consider as mainstream country music,” Sipe said. “They were veering off into a little more rock and a little more attitude in their country.
"So, we liked the idea of making it not just pure country but branching out a bit.”
Having both of those things to play off of each other is something they hope gives Kaycee tourism a little bit of a kick, attracting attention to the continuing tradition of music festivals in Kaycee and the community’s outlaw and Wild West history.
The latter also includes the death of Nate Champion, who was murdered in a cabin near Kaycee in 1892 during the Johnson County War, shot by hired guns working for cattle barons.
“All of that kind of tied in,” Sipe said. “So, everyone was immediately like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the perfect name for our festival.'”
Down By The Riverside
There will be some other changes for the festival, which Sipe said he’s patterning off the popular Nowoodstock Festival in Ten Sleep.
“I wanted to touch base with them, because Ten Sleep is a very similar size town, and it also doesn’t have a ton of places for people to stay,” Sipe said. “So, I talked to them, as well as some of the other music festivals, to design this.”
Based on some of the recommendations from Ten Sleep, Sipe plans to move the festival out to an area near the rodeo grounds.
“It will be in a grassy area right on the edge of the Powder River,” he said. “There’s a few trees, and there’s a big patch of nice grass. There’s some fencing already there, and a spot for a couple hundred people probably in that area.”
That will allow people to bring lawn chairs or blankets for the occasion, which will also include a small number of artisans with booths offering arts and crafts.
“That will be a less cement-y version of the event,” Sipe said. “So, I think it’ll be a cool thing. And we plan on kind of lighting up the trees around the edge of the river there and having a pretty cool spot we’re excited about by the rodeo grounds.”
At this time, Sipe isn’t planning to organize a rodeo, though he said if other groups in town want to hold a rodeo in conjunction with the event, he’d welcome it.
Wyoming Bands Front And Center
The first year will focus primarily on Wyoming bands, which will cover a wide range of styles.
“We’ll have country music bands there, we’ll have a lot of bluegrass (bands),” Sipe said. “We’ve got a few bands that will play a little bit of Southern rock and red dirt country and that kind of stuff, too.”
Sipe said heis a huge Wyoming music fan and has seen thousands of live music shows over the years all across the state.
Sipe has a professional sound and light company out of Casper to handle that aspect of the festival, and the stage will be similar to that used during Chris LeDoux Days.
Sipe also hopes to have a bus that can go pick people up from Casper and Buffalo for the event, but that’s a detail still in progress.
“We’re going to release our full lineup in January, and we’ll put tickets on sale then, too,” Sipe said. “And those are only going to be $25 a day or $40 for both days.”
Some of the 12 bands that will play during the music festival weekend have already been announced on the Outlaw Music Festival’s Facebook page. They include names like the Low Water String Band out of Lander, Southern Fryed from Cheyenne, and Winston Creek out of Laramie.
“These are all phenomenal bands that I’ve seen multiple times around Wyoming,” Sipe said. “And then I’ll release the rest of the bands in January, but we do have some Kaycee locals who are going to play as well.”
Eventually, Sipe said he hopes those local musicians might include Ned LeDoux, who helped inspire the creation of the Outlaw Music Festival in the first place.
“We knew we didn’t have enough money and funding to bring in Ned right now,” Sipe said. “And we have not talked to him yet. But we did let Peggy (his mother) know that we were bringing in this festival.”
“We’re going to hopefully expose a lot of people to bands, young bands and up and coming bands,” Sipe said. “And a few older bands that are, I think, some of the top bands in the state, and we’re going to have a good time.”
Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
