In Fort Worth, there’s only one complaint about Dickies Arena: not enough whiskey
The new Fort Worth city arena is even better than expected, and the only question now is when we’ll book more events.
Five concert tours and one toe-tapping George Strait weekend into the history of a coliseum built for rodeo but tuned for music, Dickies Arena is a surprise.
It’s even better than we thought.
Now the question is how many regional events Fort Worth can reel in, and whether local events like a few more select TCU Horned Frogs basketball games should shift into the new arena, located at 1911 Montgomery St.
At the Strait show Friday, country-Western music fans’ introduction to the arena’s comfy seating and concert sound, I could find only one complaint from patrons:
Not enough bars.
The wait for the arena’s TX Whiskey drinks and other $12 cocktails was up to 45 minutes, unless you were in one of the clubs.
On the other hand, there was almost no line whatsoever for the $8 hummus dip.
Even the much-feared arena traffic seemed little worse than for a rodeo or any other event at Will Rogers Memorial Center since 1944, when the Stock Show moved there from the Stockyards.
It was tough to find anyone with a complaint.
“Everybody is just euphoric,” said Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, of Hurst.
“They got it right the first time. I think we’ll have a lot more of these [concerts and events] here than people realize.”
Mark “Hawkeye” Louis of KSCS/96.3 FM, the dean of local country music radio, had seen the arena at an earlier Steve Miller Band concert.
“There’s no bad seat, and the acoustics are so great,” he said.
Dallas-Fort Worth has a lot of concert arenas: American Airlines Center in Dallas, the Dos Equis Pavilion in Fair Park, the Theatre at Grand Prairie, Toyota Music Factory in Irving and more.
“But an arena this size — 14,000 seats — and with these acoustics, it’s perfect for a big act,” Louis said.
It’s also perfect for basketball. The TCU Horned Frogs and Southern California tip off Dec. 6 at the new arena, and surely TCU will play a few games each year at Dickies Arena, along with its handsome campus Schollmaier Arena.
I never saw Ed Bass, the arena board chairman and donor who helped kick in at least $315 million for the arena — the third-largest charity gift in Texas history, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
(But then, I was in Row 22, which came equipped with the added attraction of the brisket aroma from the 1,800-pound smoker.)
In an email Saturday, Bass said he spent the show wandering throughout the building to check operations.
“The arena was ready,” he wrote: “It performed beautifully — and so did George.”
While Strait was singing “Amarillo by Morning” and “All My Exes Live in Texas,” Bass was looking the other direction, at the crowd.
“It was wonderful to see happy people flowing through every space, to see every section, every level, niche and vantage filled with [an] appreciative audience,” he wrote.
“It was truly Fort Worth.”
His wife, Sasha C. Bass, also sent a proud email.
“Everything from the brick and stone selection, to the prairie grasses on the balustrade, to the lasso on the terrazzo floors, to the leather paneling stitched by M.L. Leddy’s — all those details have Ed’s touch,” she wrote.
For Strait, 67, of Boerne, it was a crowning night in a city where he has toured regularly ever since a 1981 stop at Billy Bob’s Texas.
The concert was billed as a semi-retirement and farewell, with Strait singing reflective songs like “Troubadour” and “The Cowboy Rides Away.”
He called the arena “awesome.”
And he seemed like he meant it when he said, “Can’t wait to come back.”
This story was originally published November 23, 2019 at 3:19 PM.
