The World Dairy Expo at the Alliant Energy Center celebrated its 55th anniversary this week, featuring speakers, vendors and 2,600 animals. The Expo, which runs Oct. 2-7, mainly features cattle showing.

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Livestock farmer Steve Blessing said the Expo is mostly a promotional event. Blessing has a farm in Indiana and has been showing cows at the World Dairy Expo for 53 years.

The value of his cattle increases based on how well the cattle do in the show, Blessing said.

One standard for judging cattle is their “dairyness,” which describes how sharp the cattle is, Blessing said. This determines how well they produce milk.

Cattle farmer Jeffrey Core, who lives in Kentucky, has been coming to the World Dairy Expo for 25 years. Core did not show cattle at the show this year but has in the past and judged the show two years ago.

“This is the greatest show in the world,” Core said.

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There are three buildings housing the many cattle not being shown, but inside the main coliseum, there is space set aside for people to walk their cattle for prizes.

Core won the Klussendorf award last year for overall sportsmanship, which included his performance in the show and his breeding practices.

“You have to train them to walk like that,” Core said about the cow’s performance. “That’s not natural.”

The show gets very competitive, Core said. The cows there are sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars — one cow sold for $1.2 million this week.

Despite being competitive, he makes more friends than enemies, Core said. He feels like he knows around half the people at the Expo.

People come from all over the country and world because the cattle show in Wisconsin is one of the biggest, Blessing said.

“Everybody knows everybody in the cow world,” Blessing said.