Once upon another era, about all you could find in Fort Worth, Texas, were cowboys, a crush of bovine and meat packing plants. After all, this metropolis did begin life as a fort in the heart of Texas cattle country, and subsequently earned the moniker “Where the West begins.”
Fast-forward to the 21st century, and look at the ol’ cowgirl now. There’s plenty of flash, and that’s no spin. There’s still some cowboy culture—some scripted, some not—but it melds with a prodigious offering of art in museums and performing arts halls, all within easy reach of the convention center, restaurants and downtown hotels.
In the words of David Dubois, CMP, CAE, president and CEO of the Forth Worth CVB, “whether it be black-tie and elegant, or boots and jeans, we have plenty of great spaces to fill the bill.”
If it’s Old West you want, you can sashay over to The Stockyards National Historic District, which celebrates the city’s days as a booming cowtown from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You can almost hear the cattle auctioneer and the storied shoot ’em up showdowns. The Stockyards also boasts a “daily drive time” of the city’s own herd of Texas Longhorns, plenty of finger-lickin’ barbecue, boots, souvenir shops, and an historic wagon collection. You can even kick up your heels in the hotel where outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow once hid from the Texas Rangers.
Another Stockyards landmark is the world’s largest honky tonk, Billy Bob’s Texas, where about three acres of space offers 32 bars, country music’s biggest stars and mechanical bull riding, plus a Texas-sized dance floor—easy to see why Billy Bob’s can host up to 6,000 people for an event.
When it’s time for elegant or business casual, Fort Worth’s higher-brow spots—fueled by the city’s oil and gas wealthy—add to the options. Bass Performance Hall has been named one of the top 10 opera houses in the world by Travel + Leisure magazine, and this acclaimed, multipurpose facility is the permanent home of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Texas Ballet Theater, the Fort Worth Opera, the world-famous Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as well as special presentations by Casa Mañana.
Botanical beauty surrounds outdoor and tented events in the Fort Worth Botanical Garden, Texas’ oldest garden display. It’s a wonderland of plants, waterfalls, stonework, a Japanese tea garden, and exotic Imperial Carp (koi). Event planners who have “discovered” the site’s 20 specialty gardens and 17,000-square-foot garden center for meetings, receptions and dinners also know the four-season beauty secrets of this botanical treasure. In the conservatory, tropical foliage fills a 10,000-square-foot space. A theater-style auditorium and several rooms of varying size are meetings-ready.
Add to all this an expanding facilities portfolio that Dubois says leaves Fort Worth with little on its wish list and plenty of bragging rights.
“We are opening four more Sundance Square restaurants in the next couple of months, and three new hotels in an 18-month period downtown close to the convention center,” he says. “This will give us 2,000 rooms in walkable distance from the convention center by January 2009, and make us one of the finest midsized conventions and meetings packages in the world. One day the group can do a black-tie reception at the Bass, at one of our art museums or in one of several major hotel ballrooms, and the next night you can tell the attendees to get on their jeans for rodeo. With all due respect to our neighbors [in the DFW Metroplex], nobody does culture and cowboys like we do.”
