Fortress Lineup: Leon Bridges, Tank And The Bangas For Fort Worth Festival

Ismael Quintanilla – Father John Misty
headlining Fortress Festival 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Fort Worth, Texas’ Fortress Festival has announced its first-phase lineup including native son Leon Bridges, recent Pollstar cover artist Tank And The Bangas, and The Bright Light Social Hour April 27-28 in the city’s Cultural District.

Early bird GA and VIP tickets are on sale now starting at $79. The second phase of the lineup will be announced in January, according to festival organizers.

Put on in collaboration between Fortress Presents and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the event promises a boutique festival-going experience celebrating music, art and culture. The event will be entirely housed within the spacious lawn adjacent to the Will Rogers Coliseum and include two outdoor main stages featuring non-overlapping sets.

Soul singer Bridges, who released new LP Good Thing in May, has been a strong headlining draw this year, with recent headline reports submitted to Pollstar including Oct. 5-6 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, which sold out 11,727 tickets and grossed just under $900,000; Sept. 15 at McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheathre in Oregon, which sold 4,251 tickets and grossed $238,258; and the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles Sept. 11, which sold out 5,800 tickets and grossed $321,336.

Fortress Festival continues to be 100 percent independently produced by Fortress Presents, a Fort Worth-based company founded in 2016 by North Texas natives Alec Jhangiani and Ramtin Nikzad. The Fortress Presents team last year expanded its staff and diversified its offerings beyond the flagship festival to now include a diverse portfolio of branded events along with event production and marketing services.

Pollstar interviewed Fortress’ founders in April, with Jhangiani explaining the vision of the festival’s lineup: “Being in Fort Worth, we started out wanting to kind of defy expectations of what people would think of a festival in Fort Worth, which everyone obviously associates with country music. I’m not saying we turned our backs on that but something that we wanted from the start was to show people that we’re not just about one genre. We have a lot of hip-hop, interesting rock, alternative stuff and progressive music.”

The 2018 lineup featured Father John Misty and De La Soul as headliners.

• Tank and the Bangas

• Bobby Sessions

• The Bright Light Social Hour

• Abhi the Nomad

• Red Shahan

• Adrian Stresow

• Sailor Poon

• Luna Luna

• The Cush

• War Party