Dickies Arena dazzles more than 9,000 fans at the Fort Worth venue’s first rodeo
More than 9,000 fans packed into Dickies Arena on Friday night for the first-ever rodeo event at Fort Worth’s dazzling new venue.
“It’s a lot more lavish than I expected,” said Latonja Davis, who is from Michigan but recently moved to Fort Worth. Davis took in the scene from a concourse in the upper level before finding her seat.
Her fiance, Robert Evans, who was visiting from Mississippi, added: “This shows how much the city cares about the rodeo.”
Dickies Arena is the new home for rodeo activities associated with the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, which began Friday and continues through Feb. 8.
Other than a few complaints about standing in the rain to get through the metal detectors, fans had nothing but praise for the $540 million arena, which offered spacious seating, top-quality acoustics and a near-perfect view of the action from any seat.
It was a dramatic departure from past performances at the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, the home for stock show rodeos from 1944 to 2019.
Ed Bass, stock show chairman, kicked off the festivities by riding horseback to the center of the rodeo ground. Addressing the crowd with a microphone, he described Dickies Arena as “the finest rodeo arena in the world.”
“This will be the home of our rodeo for generations to come,” Bass told the crowd, which roared with approval.
The rodeo performance was broadcast live inside the arena by 18 cameras, including a Skycam suspended by cables above the dirt surface. Images from those cameras were shown on the enormous high-definition scoreboard suspended from the ceiling — so that, even when the competitors were up against the railings, they were never out of view for the audience.
Friday’s event was billed as a Best of the West Ranch Rodeo, a competition in which working cowhands show their skills. A second Best of the West Ranch Rodeo is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday, followed by a Best of Mexico Celebracion at 7:30 p.m. Sunday and a Cowboys of Color Rodeo at 2 p.m. Monday.
More than 9,000 tickets were sold for the first night’s performance, said Matt Homan, president and general manager of Trail Drive Management Corp., the nonprofit agency that operates Dickies Arena.
Dickies Arena was designed to seat roughly 9,000 people for rodeos, and up to 14,000 for other events such as concerts.
At the beginning of the show, it appeared that about a fourth of the seats in the arena were empty. However, also at that time the bars, concession stands and public gathering areas were crowded with people, most of whom eventually took their seats.
Some of those food and drink areas offered unobstructed views of the arena floor, perhaps removing the motivation of some patrons to bother finding their seats.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 8:36 PM.
