By Steve Weisman
(photo courtesy Pheasants Forever) An aerial view at the 2024 National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic held in Sioux Falls.
As we approach the month of March, a lot of upland/pheasant hunters begin thinking about the annual Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic. This year’s event is the 20th year for Quail Forever and will be held March 7 – March 9 (Friday – Sunday) in Kansas City, MO at the Kansas City Convention Center. Known as the Largest Upland Shown in America, the Classic has something for everyone including hunters, landowners, bird dog owners and conservationists.
Tickets start at $15 for one day for individuals and $10 for youth between the ages of 6-16. The $15 tickets include a six-month membership to either Pheasants Forever or Quail Forever. The youth tickets include an annual youth membership for either organization.
Various evening fundraisers – including the Concert for Conservation – are already sold out in advance, but the Friday Upland Rally (raffles, games, live music) is still available. Advanced daily passes to the show and Friday night event can be purchased online at PheasantFest.org.
The Classic is rotated yearly from one midwestern city/state to another: Omaha, NE (2022); Minneapolis, MN (2023); Sioux Falls, SD (2024); Kansas City, MO (2025). Chicago, IL and Des Moines, IA have also been host cities.
Last year, I attended the Classic at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls, SD for a day. Was I ever in my element! I’ve always said that the Classic is like one huge fair, only in early March and under perfect indoor conditions! I just kept wandering around and then back again. That way I could pick up what I missed the first time through.
The 2024 Classic was a record breaker with over 33,000 upland enthusiasts waking through the doors.
Opportunities
Now, how about 2025 and the Kansas City Convention Center. Everything upland will be found throughout the weekend, including the annual Bird Dog Parade, the Youth Village, the Habitat Help Desk, the Women on the Wing Lounge, and more. The list of seminar stages includes:
- The Public Lands Pavilion
- The Bird Dog Stage
- The Path to the Uplands Stage
- The Habitat Stage
- The Quail Classic Stage
- Upland Bird Sessions
In addition to seminars, there will also be Upland Bird Technical & Poster
Sessions. There, you’ll be able to meet some of today’s leading upland bird researchers.
This year, PF/QF is hosting its second annual Concert for Conservation. This year’s performance features Muscadine Bloodline at the Uptown Theater on Thursday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Jared Wiklund, director of communications for PF/QF and a former Iowa employee for The Habitat Organization, expressed his excitement for the event. “The excitement for the Kansas City event has been building for a long time. I really like to tell people that National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic is truly a way to extend their season. When you join thousands of other upland enthusiasts in one location with bird dogs, seminars and all the bird hunting gear you can think of, it’s hard not to feel like you are preparing to go afield.”
A little about Pheasants Forever
Now about the national Pheasants Forever organization and its focus on people at the local level. It is truly a grassroots, volunteer and membership-based organizations with a diverse group of hunters, farmers, ranchers, landowners, conservation enthusiasts, and wildlife officials. They are linked by a common thread: they all want to make a difference for wildlife by conserving or creating habitat.
As an organization, the key to its longevity and success revolves around their 157,000 members belonging to local chapters that hold more than 750 fundraising banquets. These members and local chapters are the driving force for PF as the recognized leader in wildlife habitat projects accomplished and the leading advocate for wildlife habitat conservation.
Obviously, in both Clay and Dickinson counties, the local chapters are truly driving organizations that have had a huge impact helping to conserve and create habitat.
Pheasants Forever with its more than 300 biologists provides support for landowners in helping to plan and then to plant the best wildlife habitat based on their location and soil types.
In 2024 alone, The PF & QF wildlife biologist team made 34,648 landowner contacts, leading to more than 1.71 million acres of voluntary habitat improvement for wildlife. Additionally, more than 1,000 Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever volunteers spearheaded 97 Hands-On Habitat projects and annually complete ~60K acres of habitat improvements.
To learn more about the 2025 National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic, go to PheasantFest.org.
