Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Fort Worth this Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving weekend around Fort Worth will feature fun new holiday events, including concerts, train rides, and more. There will also be visits from two rising country music stars and an MMA/boxing event featuring an appearance by a huge rock band.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend.

Friday, November 26

Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau presents North Pole Express Christmas Village
The Grapevine Convention & Visitors Bureau will present North Pole Express Christmas Village, featuring a winter wonderland in the Snowy Christmas Forest where visitors can take a selfie in the snow in Texas. Visitors can also shop for North Pole Express merchandise, toy trains, and more in the General Store, enjoy holiday treats and cups of hot chocolate, coffee, or apple cider. The Grapevine Christmas Passport, Elf Adventure, invites guests to learn holiday-themed heritage skills and enjoy making fun keepsakes with classic Christmas cookie cutter crafting and other craft activities. The event takes place in downtown Grapevine through December 23.

Grapevine Vintage Railroad presents North Pole Express
Guests can experience the magic of Christmas onboard Grapevine Vintage Railroad’s North Pole Express. Mrs. Claus takes her guests to pick up Santa and bring him to the Christmas Capital of Texas. Along the journey, guests can join in singing along to Christmas favorites and enjoy Santa’s favorite chocolate chip cookies. Mrs. Claus will also give each child a magical “We Believe” silver bell that reminds them of the spirit of Christmas and of all of the goodness and kindness within them. The trains depart from Grapevine Cotton Belt Depot through December 23.

The Michael Hix Christmas Party
Downtown Cowtown at the Isis will highlight the magnetic charm and wit of Michael Hix. This festive, high-energy Christmas show is bursting with Christmas favorites like "Jingle Bells," "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and more. The show includes music, comedy, fun, and celebration.

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra presents Home for the Holidays
One of Fort Worth's favorite holiday traditions returns when the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, special guest artists, and conductor Byron Stripling present Home for the Holidays, featuring a program of Christmas carols and seasonal tunes. Audiences can wave to Santa as the orchestra conjures a white Christmas courtesy of a magical snowfall. Take place at Bass Performance Hall through Sunday. FWSO is partnering with Toys for Tots to provide gifts for children who may not be receiving gifts this year. They will have a uniformed Marine to collect toys on-site at the Saturday and Sunday concerts, and they will have a donation box on Friday evening. All attendees who donate a toy will receive $5 off their ticket purchase at the event.

Zach Bryan in concert
Oklahoma native Zach Bryan is an up-and-coming country star who has YouTube to thank for his burgeoning success. After he started uploading his music in 2017, he had a viral song with "Heading South." Bryan has self released two albums, including 2020's Elisabeth, which went to No. 22 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart. He'll play at Billy Bob's Texas.

Saturday, November 27

A Twitty and Lynn Acoustic Christmas
A Twitty and Lynn Acoustic Christmas is a holiday-themed salute to Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn starring Tre Twitty and Tayla Lynn. The pair will be honoring their grandparents in a heartfelt tribute at Downtown Cowtown at the Isis. They will cover many of their No. 1 hits along with some holiday favorites and beloved classics of their grandparents.

Triller Fight Club presents Triad Combat
Triller Fight Club presents the debut of Triad Combat, a new combat team sport which incorporates boxing and MMA rules in an aggressive, fast-paced manner with the fighters competing in a specially designed triangular ring over two-minute rounds. It features professional boxers competing against professional mixed martial arts fighters. The event, taking place at Globe Life Field in Arlington, will also feature a special concert by Metallica and other surprise guests.

Granger Smith in concert
Country singer Granger Smith has been releasing albums for over 20 years, but he didn't start tasting real success until 2013 when he released his first album with a major label. He's had two top three albums on the Billboard Country charts, and he released a double album, Country Things Vol. 1 and 2, in 2020. He'll play at Billy Bob's Texas.

Grapevine Vintage Railroad presents North Pole Express at Grapevine Cotton Belt Depot, November 26-December 23.

Photo courtesy of Grapevine Vintage Railroad

Grapevine Vintage Railroad presents North Pole Express at Grapevine Cotton Belt Depot, November 26-December 23.

concerts holidays event-planner symphony

This week's hot headlines

Fort Worth's first H-E-B store tops this week's 5 hottest headlines

Photo courtesy of H-E-B

It's really true this time.

Editor's note: A lot happened this week, so here's your chance to get caught up. Read on for the week's most popular headlines. Looking for the best things to do this weekend? Find that list here.

1. H-E-B is in fact opening a supermarket at Fort Worth's Alliance. Despite some coy protests to the contrary, it turns out that Fort Worth's Alliance is getting an H-E-B store after all. The mega supermarket chain is continuing its expansion in the DFW Metroplex with plans to open H-E-B Alliance at the northwest corner of Heritage Trace Parkway and N. Riverside Drive.

2. Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 5 sizzling new restaurants for October. Fall's almost always a good time for restaurant openings in Fort Worth and 2022 is no exception. There are burgers, sandwiches, street food, sushi, bread, dumplings, and a fried bologna sandwich. Here's where to eat for October.

3. Afton Battle steps down as Fort Worth Opera general director after 2 years. Fort Worth Opera general and artistic director Afton Battle has resigned after leading the company through two challenging, post-pandemic years; her last day with the company will be November 23.

4. North Texas bluebonnet capital flourishes as No. 4 best suburb in state. The North Texas city known as a bluebonnet capital of Texas each spring is also one of the state's best overall suburbs. Ennis lands at No. 4 in a recent SmartAsset ranking of the best suburbs near a large city in Texas. Nationally, it's ranked 102nd.

5. Glittering Auberge Resorts luxury hotel checks into Fort Worth Cultural District. A new hotel in Fort Worth's Cultural District will come with one of the hottest names in luxe lodging: Auberge Resorts Collection will manage Bowie House, a new "urban luxury retreat" being built off the bricks of Camp Bowie. Now officially called Bowie House, Auberge Resorts Collection, the hotel is expected to open in late 2023.

supermarkets opera where-to-eat hotels rankings hot-headlines

Concert news

Shania Twain rides into DFW to reclaim her throne on upcoming world tour

Photo by Louie Banks

Shania Twain will play at Dos Equis Pavilion on July 21, 2023 as part of her Queen of Me Tour.

Country music star Shania Twain is embarking on an expansive world tour dubbed the Queen of Me Tour, which will come to Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas on July 21, 2023.

The North Texas date is the second-to-last of 44 North American concerts currently scheduled on the tour before Twain heads to Europe for five final shows. In addition to DFW, she will also play in Houston on July 22.

This is Twain's first tour in nearly five years; she last played in Dallas in June 2018. She'll be joined on the tour by a variety of well-known current female stars; Arlington native Mickey Guyton will be her special guest in both Dallas and Houston.

The tour was announced in conjunction with the news of the upcoming release of her new album, also called Queen of Me, due out on February 3, 2023. Her first album since 2017, it is also the first with her new record label, Republic Nashville.

The sales of that album will add to her record of being the best-selling female artist in country music history, a record she's achieved despite releasing only five albums in her 30-year career.

Twain has remained a star all these years thanks to three massive albums - 1995's The Woman in Me, 1997's Come On Over, and 2002's Up! - each of which sold over 11 million copies in the U.S. alone. She also has seven No. 1 hits and eight more top 10 hits from those three albums.

Tickets for the tour will go on sale starting 10 am Friday, November 4 at LiveNation.com. Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets beginning 10 am Tuesday, November 1 until 10 pm Thursday, November 3 through the Citi Entertainment program.

concerts music celebrities

Movie review

Cate Blanchett orchestrates Oscar-caliber performance as power-hungry conductor in Tár

Photo courtesy of Focus Features

Cate Blanchett in Tár

Since the #MeToo movement gained steam in 2017, a number of films and TV shows have confronted the new reality in direct and indirect ways. In almost all cases, however, the person behaving badly was a man, as men have long been the ones to hold the most power. But immoral conduct is not limited by gender, as the new film Tár demonstrates.

Cate Blanchett stars as Lydia Tár, a world-renowned conductor currently leading the Berlin Philharmonic. As the film begins, we see her in a number of settings: Giving a live interview in front of an audience, teaching a graduate-level music class, planning her schedule with her assistant, Francesca (Noémie Merlant). It’s clear that she is well-respected by those who know her by reputation, but the closer you get to her, the more her flaws start to reveal themselves.

Bit by bit, the film pokes holes in her holier-than-thou personality. While somewhat affable on the surface, she has a need for power – and a willingness to do anything to hold on to it – that manifests itself in a variety of unsavory ways. Most notable among these is her taste for young female protégés, a desire she does little to hide despite having a child with her wife, Sharon (Nina Hoss).

Written and directed by Todd Field, making his first film since 2006’s Little Children, Tár is most notable for how much time it devotes to setting up Tár as a character. Instead of being overtly obvious about her faults or painting her as blatantly evil, Field instead drops a series of hints about her proclivities while mostly showing her as strong and strong-willed, characteristics that have often been praised in men.

Even when things start to go awry for Tár, Field maintains the nuance of the story, depicting her increasingly fragile mental state through a series of scenes in which she hears mysterious noises. These and other semi-bizarre things that happen to her at various points in the film keep the audience on its collective toes, never sure what is going to be shown next.

Though the film is set in the rarefied world of classical music, it has a grounded nature that keeps it balanced. Those who know a lot about the world of symphony orchestras will be pleased with the level of detail devoted to the scenes depicting the inner workings, but the story as a whole is most interested in the people, not the politics, of the industry.

The film will likely leave many at a loss as to how to feel about its protagonist. The many factors that come into play – Tár’s gender and sexuality, Blanchett’s own reputation, the history of patriarchy, the upper-class world in which it takes place, among others – all color how the character is perceived. Even when she’s at her worst, Tár still has a magnetism that’s difficult to deny.

Blanchett, per usual, gives an ultra-compelling performance. The two-time Oscar winner will likely secure her seventh nomination, as she enthralls with her choices in voice, movement, and more. Merlant, a French actor best known for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, does a great job in her supporting role, providing her own intensity.

Tár is an of-the-moment film that examines the role of a leader, who’s allowed to lead, and how leaders should act when they rise to power. With one of today’s best actors again at the top of her game, it’s a can’t-miss opportunity for movie lovers.

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Tár opens in Fort Worth theaters on October 28.

$Cate Blanchett in T\u00e1r$

Photo courtesy of Focus Features

Cate Blanchett in Tár

film movies

Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Fort Worth this Thanksgiving weekend

Grapevine Vintage Railroad presents North Pole Express at Grapevine Cotton Belt Depot, November 26-December 23.

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This week's hot headlines

Fort Worth's first H-E-B store tops this week's 5 hottest headlines

These are the 12 best things to do in Fort Worth this weekend

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Concert news

Shania Twain rides into DFW to reclaim her throne on upcoming world tour

These are the 12 best things to do in Fort Worth this weekend

Jonas Brothers gobble up halftime gig at Cowboys' Thanksgiving Day game in Arlington

Texas' dreamiest destination spa unwraps regal $1,000 facial for 25th anniversary

Movie review

Cate Blanchett orchestrates Oscar-caliber performance as power-hungry conductor in Tár

These are the 12 best things to do in Fort Worth this weekend

Jonas Brothers gobble up halftime gig at Cowboys' Thanksgiving Day game in Arlington

Texas' dreamiest destination spa unwraps regal $1,000 facial for 25th anniversary

Weekend Event Planner

Grapevine Vintage Railroad presents North Pole Express at Grapevine Cotton Belt Depot, November 26-December 23.

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This week's hot headlines

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We will not share or sell your email address.

Concert news

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We will not share or sell your email address.

Movie review

CultureMap Emails Are AwesomeGet Fort Worth intel delivered daily.

We will not share or sell your email address.

CultureMap Emails Are Awesome
Get Fort Worth intel delivered daily.

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Get Fort Worth intel delivered daily.

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