{"id":479695,"date":"2025-12-30T09:10:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/479695\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:10:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:10:21","slug":"cliburn-winners-top-fort-worths-hottest-ae-stories-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/479695\/","title":{"rendered":"Cliburn winners top Fort Worth\u2019s hottest A&E stories of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: <\/strong>The biggest cultural event of the year in Fort Worth was also our most-read arts coverage: The 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Readers clamored for news of each round and then celebrated along with the winners. Other popular arts & entertainment stories of 2025 included everything from an auction of Hollywood guns to the State Fair Big Tex food awards to a breathtaking royal photo exhibition. <\/p>\n

Here are our hottest Fort Worth arts & entertainment stories of 2025:<\/p>\n

1. Pianist from Hong Kong wins 2025 Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth<\/a>. Aristo Sham, a 29-year-old pianist from Hong Kong, China, won the Seventeenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth. Second place went to Vitaly Starikov, 30, of Israel\/Russia; and third place went to Evren Ozel, 26, of the United States. The winners worked their way through the preliminary round<\/a>, quarterfinals<\/a>, semifinals<\/a>, and finals<\/a> to be crowned June 7 at Bass Hall. They were then celebrated with a fireworks display<\/a> in Sundance Square.<\/p>\n

2. Bedford company to auction guns from Clint Eastwood and Frank Sinatra<\/a>. A Bedford auction house was offering a passel of celebrity guns including a trio of weapons used in the 1985 film Pale Rider. Three on-screen Remingtons used by Clint Eastwood in the film were offered in an auction hosted on December 5-7 by Rock Island Auction Company, a Bedford company famous for selling historic arms.<\/p>\n

\"Frank Gun presented to Frank Sinatra. RIAC <\/p>\n

3. Fort Worth music venue the Post to reopen in former Lola’s Saloon<\/a>. A popular music venue in Fort Worth was making a comeback: The Post, the intimate listening room that had become a staple for music lovers, announced it was reopening for business at 2736 W. 6th St., in the address previously occupied by Lola’s Saloon, the longtime music venue.<\/p>\n

4. Dallas Mavericks to play first-ever game at Dickies Arena Fort Worth<\/a>. Dallas Mavericks fans in Fort Worth would have the first chance to see No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg<\/a> right in their backyard when the basketball team played the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday, October 6 at Dickies Arena.<\/p>\n

5. Fort Worth Parade of Lights 2025 postponed a week due to weather<\/a>. The GM Financial Parade of Lights, originally scheduled for Sunday, November 23 in downtown Fort Worth, would be postponed one week to Sunday, November 30 at 6 pm due to the forecast of heavy rain and storms during the original event time, organizers announced on November 20.<\/p>\n

6. Breathtaking new photos of Princess Diana coming to Arlington museum<\/a>. A new exhibition at the Arlington Museum of Art showcased one of the most-loved and most-photographed women in the world: Princess Diana. “Princess Diana: Accredited Access Exhibition,”<\/a> featuring photos by the late official royal photographer Anwar Hussein, opened January 17 and ran through April.<\/p>\n

\"Princess “Princess Diana: Accredited Access,” featuring photos of Anwar Hussein, ran January 17-April 6, 2025, at Arlington Museum of Art. Getty Images <\/p>\n

7. Amusement park Malibu Jack’s makes Texas debut in North Richland Hills<\/a>. A new mega indoor theme park with go karts and a rollercoaster was rolling into North Richland Hills: Called Malibu Jack’s,<\/a> it’s a chain from Kentucky that opened in a former<\/a> At Home space at 8651 Airport Fwy.<\/p>\n

8. State Fair of Texas selects 4 far out winners for Big Tex food awards<\/a>. The 2025 State Fair of Texas revealed the winners for the 21st Annual Big Tex Choice Awards, the State Fair’s annual competition of new over-the-top foodstuffs from concessionaires. A panel of judges convened on August 21 to taste and evaluate the 15 finalists<\/a> before arriving at the four winners.<\/p>\n

\"Cookies The Cookies Chaos Milkshake is a winner. Photo courtesy of State Fair of Texas <\/p>\n

9. Fort Worth Symphony reveals fate of Concerts in the Garden on ’25-26 season<\/a>. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra would take audiences to Paris, Finland, and Alice\u2019s Wonderland in its 2025-26 season – just not to the lawn of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. For the second year<\/a>, the FWSO pressed pause on its beloved summer-picnic concert series as it awaits the completion of an outdoor stage at the Botanic Garden. The FWSO hosted the alternative Mercedes T. Bass Sounds of the Summer Series.<\/p>\n

10. Sherlock, Shakespeare, and singing cats: 16 DFW shows for June<\/a>. We had all sorts of creatures and characters roaming Dallas-Fort Worth stages in June, from dancing cats and lions to Greek muses, heavenly workers, and Spanish-speaking puppets. You also got the choice of glorious air conditioning or spreading out your picnic blanket to see Shakespeare under the stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor’s note: The biggest cultural event of the year in Fort Worth was also our most-read arts coverage:…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":479696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-479695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115807743155383510","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479695","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=479695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}