In mid-June, Fort Worth packed up its boots, its beats, and its best velvet jacket and headed straight for the City That Never Sleeps. Destination: Lavan Chelsea, an upscale venue in the heart of New York City. The mission: to give the Big Apple a full-tilt taste of Cowtown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the center of it all was Leon Bridges, Fort Worth\u2019s hometown crooner turned global soul star. \u201cFrom the soulful corners of Magnolia Ave to sold-out venues across the globe, Leon carries Fort Worth with him in every lyric,\u201d Visit Fort Worth posted. Bridges, who first captured national attention with his 2015 debut album\u00a0Coming Home, surprised guests that night with the release of \u201cHold On\u201d \u2014 a heartfelt single commemorating a decade since the record dropped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Backed by a slate of homegrown talent that included cosmic cowgirl Summer Dean and the ever-stylish Disco Cowboy, the event was designed to showcase Fort Worth in all its genre-bending, boot-stomping glory. And judging by the crowd\u2019s reaction \u2014 many of whom admitted they\u2019d never set foot in Texas, let alone its fourth-largest city \u2014 it worked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fort Worth\u2019s personality \u2014 big-hearted and bold, unpretentious yet stylish \u2014 was on full display as well. Western wear dealer to the stars Laura Simmons, owner of Studio 74 Vintage, brought a lot of heavy Western wear for men and women. \u201cJust some things that appropriately represent Fort Worth,\u201d she said of her carefully curated collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every detail \u2014 from drinks with custom labels to racks of Western fashion \u2014 was carefully curated to highlight the city\u2019s unique blend of tradition and trend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear Fort Worth is very posh, very Western,\u201d said Julie Vadnal, deputy editor of\u00a0Domino\u00a0magazine. \u201cI just had a jalapeno popper, and that might be the most Texas thing I\u2019ve ever tasted.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s exactly the point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Visit Fort Worth, the nonprofit tasked with marketing the city to the world, isn\u2019t just putting on parties \u2014 it\u2019s investing in visibility. The visitor economy in Fort Worth generates more than $2.5 billion annually, and events like this are part of a larger strategy to support the city\u2019s creatives, amplify its cultural capital, and attract future visitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city is setting us up to be successful,\u201d Summer Dean said. \u201cThey\u2019re doing everything they can to get us on the road and give us opportunities like this. I\u2019m spilling a drink that\u2019s got my picture on it right now. I mean, it\u2019s crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the middle of it all was Bridges \u2014 velvet-voiced and dressed to kill \u2014 reminding the crowd why Fort Worth isn\u2019t just a stop on the map. It\u2019s a sound, a soul, and a story worth sharing. His performance capped off a night that felt less like tourism marketing and more like a movement, rooted in the spirit of home, yet always reaching toward what\u2019s next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such an honor to rep Fort Worth around the world,\u201d Bridges shared. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In mid-June, Fort Worth packed up its boots, its beats, and its best velvet jacket and headed straight…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,16473,10574,990,7371,7372,16474,11878,10763,5921,16475,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,16472],"class_list":{"0":"post-16743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-cowtown","10":"tag-fashion","11":"tag-food","12":"tag-fort-worth","13":"tag-fortworth","14":"tag-leon-bridges","15":"tag-live-music","16":"tag-stephen-montoya","17":"tag-style","18":"tag-summer-dean","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-top-story","21":"tag-tx","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-visit-fort-worth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114750644812054516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}