Rally Point Music Festival Grows Up: Fort Worth's Veterans Day Show Becomes Five Days, Nov. 11–15
Army veteran Sean Russell built last year's one-day show around a simple gap — Veterans Day events for struggling veterans, and almost none about building a second life. This year it runs five days across Fort Worth, and most of it is free.
FORT WORTH — The Rally Point Music Festival returns this week for its second year, and it is not the same size as the first: what was a single-day show in 2025 is now a five-day festival, Nov. 11–15, woven through Fort Worth's live-music rooms in honor of Veterans Day, KXT reported Monday. The festival is spearheaded by Sean Russell of Cut Throat Finches and The Nancys, an Army veteran who started it after noticing what the usual Veterans Day calendar leaves out. "A lot of [Veteran's Day events] are centered around people struggling," Russell told KXT. "Mental health issues, homelessness, job opportunities. What I felt like was missing was showing veterans how to make a life in a community after they get out of the service. A real second career, a second life, a second identity."
The week is built to make introductions. It opens Wednesday with the Texas Tailgate Songwriter Night at The Post (7 p.m.), continues Thursday with a Rally Point Showcase at Sidesaddle Saloon and a Blues Jam at Magnolia Motor Lounge (both 7–10 p.m.), and peaks Friday at Tulips FTW, where Russell's afternoon workshop — "Hello Band! Meet Song!", 2–3 p.m., no cover — demonstrates in real time how a new song is introduced to a band, before another Sidesaddle showcase that night. Saturday brings Russell's solo set at Tulips for the Fort Worth Songwriter Festival (6 p.m., ticket required), and Sunday closes with Veteran Songwriters in the Round at Tulips (4:45 p.m., ticket required) — Bart Crow, Hope MacGregor, Taylor Ashlyn and Tom Pritchett swapping songs. Most activations are free; photographers and videographers will document the week so the artists leave with material to build on.
The lineup across the five days also includes Chris Kurek, Chuck Briseno, Jeremy Hull, Johnny Cole Murdock, Josh Jordan, Kasey Dixon, Kevin Mal Smith, Ryan Mauritz, Steve Hammond and Zach Romo — veteran and non-veteran musicians booked, as Russell puts it, to plug the vet community into the music community. "This is something I can do to help, it's as simple as that," Russell said. "If I can help a couple people find something beyond their old life... that's what matters to me." Fort Worth's Veterans Day itself is Wednesday; its music festival for veterans now runs the whole week around it.
