Annual festival returns to Minneapolis in 2026
Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s 2025 National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic, presented by Federal Ammunition, concluded today at the Kansas City Convention Center in Kansas City, Mo. A crowd of 23,930 supporters flocked to the annual gathering, making it the largest Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic ever in Kansas City. The event celebrated the habitat, access, advocacy and education initiatives fueling North America’s leading upland habitat conservation group. This year was particularly special for the organization, as attendees also helped celebrate the 20th anniversary of Quail Forever.
“This was our third time in Kansas City, and we were honored to be back in the heart of quail country for such a special occasion,” said Marilyn Vetter, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s president and CEO. “Twenty years ago we began our journey to restore quail numbers right here in Missouri, and have since gone on to impact over 7 million acres of quail habitat across the country. On behalf of the entire organization and our national board of directors, I want to thank all of our volunteers, supporters and partners for helping us put on another successful Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic.”
National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic combines a national consumer show, wildlife habitat seminar series and family event complete with puppies, tractors, shotguns, and wildlife art. For 2025, the nation’s largest gathering of upland hunters celebrated the 20th anniversary of Quail Forever, which was founded to help halt the nationwide decline of Bobwhite Quail populations in 2005. The event also saw the return of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s Concert for Conservation — where country duo Muscadine Bloodline played to a sold out crowd Thursday night and raised over $100,000 for the organization’s mission.
As always, the show floor at Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic featured nearly 400 of the nation’s top outdoor vendors, as well as numerous show stages covering a wide variety of outdoor topics. Highlights of the weekend included the announcement of the Arizona Quail Initiative, a brand-new habitat effort in Southwest that will impact thousands of acres in the next four years.
The biggest news of the weekend came as Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, alongside national sponsor onX Hunt, announced the organization’s already successful Public Access to Habitat (PATH) program will be expanded to a national scale. The PATH program has already created nearly 70,000 acres of brand new public access across South Dakota and Nebraska. The initiative will now look to build upon this success nationally, with the goal of opening 1.28 million acres of privately owned wildlife habitat to the public by 2026.
“This is exciting stuff, seeing this program expand to the national level is going to interest a lot of people,” said John Laux, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s permanent habitat protection programs manager. “We want to focus on enrolling high quality habitat on private land, and PATH is our main mechanism for accomplishing that goal.”
Saturday night was capped off with the PF & QF National Banquet, where keynote speaker Clay Newcomb spoke to a crowd of over 1,700 hunters and conservationists. The well-known sportsman, writer and MeatEater podcast host spoke to his longtime family connection with quail, which helped develop his passion for the natural world.
“Before I ever hunted a bear, a deer or a turkey, I was a quail hunter by blood,” Newcomb said. “Some of my first memories of engagement with wild places were overgrown fields with long-legged pointers leaving tracks in frost. Bird dogs and quail hunting were the relational conduit that transferred to me a value system that went far beyond the boundaries of being a bird hunter.”
The show garnered 8,035 total associate/affiliate memberships, including 5,711 Quail Forever memberships. There were also 121 elite memberships added to the nation’s leading upland habitat conservation group.
National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic also delivered tangible habitat benefits for pheasants, quail and other wildlife. The Landowner Habitat Help Room provided technical assistance to more than 450 landowners, delivering conservation guidance on approximately 27,000 acres across over 20 states. Accompanied by a trained Pheasants Forever or Quail Forever biologist, landowners were educated on how to improve their acres for wildlife and even what local, state and federal conservation programs they qualified for.
Next year, National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic returns home to Minneapolis, Minn., where chapters, members, exhibitors, speakers and attendees will celebrate the accomplishments and mission of The Habitat Organization on February 20-22, 2026, at the Minneapolis Convention Center.