Fort Worth Music Festival & Conference rocks the Stockyards, uniting Texas talent & industry professionals
FORT WORTH – The second annual Fort Worth Music Festival & Conference is underway in the Stockyards.
Produced by Live Nation, in partnership with Larry Joe Taylor and local chef Tim Love, the festival aims to generate awareness surrounding the Texas music scene while working to build an infrastructure where artists can establish and grow their careers in Texas and beyond.
The festival unites music enthusiasts and provides rising artists with an overview on how to enter and establish themselves within the live music industry, while also serving as a showcase for Texas-based talent with 70+ live performances across eight stages.
"The Texas music scene has flourished over the last few years, but there's a lack of the infrastructure for music, lawyers, management companies, agents, etc," Taylor said. "We're losing a lot of that talent to Nashville and to other places. We would like for our homegrown kids to be able to live here, make a living here, and to tour the world from here. Essentially making Fort Worth the hub of Texas music, and there's no better place to do it than the Stockyards and Fort Worth."
Since 1990, the Texas Music Office has fostered the economic development of Texas music businesses, Texas musicians and Texas communities.
Director Brendon Anthony says, "We just want our music industry professionals to be the best educated that they can. And so we never want to miss an opportunity to talk about all of the other things that go into being a true music industry professional. So this conference part, is an opportunity to talk about songwriting, publishing, all those different things, agency ownership, all those different things that go into being a real music industry professional."
Singer and songwriter Shelby Stone, a newcomer to the music scene, says the knowledge you can gain here is invaluable. "Speaking as a young artist, events like this mean everything because everyone just sits down like I want to be a songwriter, and I want to be a musician. But no one realizes the brand development and the marketing and the networking and everything that goes into it, like booking agents to managers."
The festival is nice to your pocketbook, too! A day pass is just $35, and the event runs through late Saturday evening. For more information, click here.