The Big Apple has left the country.
On Friday, the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) “Unleash the Beast” arrives at Madison Square Garden for a three-day run. The New York City audience will be bigger than ever.
When the bonanza first came to MSG 17 years ago, they gave out free tickets on Seventh Avenue.
Last year, the event sold about 39,000 tickets, and ticket sales are up 15%, according to PBR.
Flint Rasmussen, PBR’s Senior Vice President of Fan Engagement, calls it the “Yellowstone Effect.”
“It’s a real thing in terms of generating revenue in our business,” he told The Post.
The PBR’s popularity comes as New Yorkers are increasingly embracing cowboy culture, celebrating Beyoncé’s western turn with her latest album, donning Stetsons and boots to hit the city’s growing number of tonkas and catching Bella Hadid in the saddle on the street. of the meat packing district.
The 28-year-old supermodel and her cowboy boyfriend Adan Bañuelos, 35, put on a show of the cropped horse last September to close out Fashion Week.
“Now every model wants a cowboy to date,” quipped Chris Reda, co-owner of Common Country, a new bar in Kips Bay brimming with Southern flair.
The 3,400-square-foot venue features deer taxidermy, farmhouse beams imported from Kentucky, live bands, line dancing and a soundtrack of local and country music.
Reda, a 40-year-old New Yorker who worked at some of NYC’s biggest nightclubs of the 1990s — the Palladium, Tunnel, the Limelight — and his business partner Noah Aussems, 27, first came up with the idea for open a night club in the country. in early 2020.
The pandemic delayed their plans, but Reda says the timing ended up being right for the money.
On the club’s opening weekend in early December, hundreds of partygoers in their 20s and 30s — financial bros, models, influencers, media people and the like — lined up for more than two hours to entered inside.
“I feel like we hit it at the right time,” Reda said. “She [hasn’t] peaked yet. It’s getting to that point.
Malu Marzarotto, a 27-year-old who lives in Williamsburg and has her own design studio, was among those in attendance at Common Country’s opening.
Dressed in cowboy gear – including a Marlboro leather jacket from the 1970s – she had a blast.
“It’s like an escape from the city. When you’re there, you definitely don’t feel like you’re in New York City,” Marzarotto told The Post.
A native of a small Ohio town with a country vibe, she found her groove dancing in bars in Queens or the Common Country.
“It just simplifies the things that people like the most. Being together with friends [and] enjoying life, music.â€
Common Country joins old New York yee-haw institutions like Flaming Saddles and Coyote Ugly, along with new spots like Daisy Dukes, which just popped up in the Financial District.
The next few weeks will see the opening of Cowboy Tom on the Lower East Side.
Thomas Viola, a 38-year-old entrepreneur who studied fashion design, is the cowboy behind the new cocktail lounge.
Viola swapped his usual Burberry sneakers and Alexander McQueen punk kicks for boots during the Covid lockdown when he returned to his childhood passion for horse riding.
Last summer, he was first toying with the idea of opening the bar when he saw about 20 women downtown walk by in cowboy boots in the span of 10 minutes.
“I believe in signs,” he said. “I was like ‘wait … maybe this is meant to be.’
Fashion labels and retailers are saying upset.
Last January, Pharrell Williams sent cowboys tumbling down the runway at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris, following in the footsteps of Celine’s spring/summer 2024 presentation boots a year earlier
At Boot Barn, the national western clothing giant, net sales rose 13.7% from September 2023 to September 2024.
The company has expanded its coverage in the Northeast and just opened its first store in Bergen County – in Paramus, New Jersey.
At Little Ranch Western Wear in Westchester, sales of cowboy hats, especially the Stetson brand, rose 80% last year. Store manager Hilda Silva credits the “Yellowstone effect.”
Ariat, one of the world’s top boot brands and a PBR sponsor, has also seen “double-digit growth” in the past year, especially in areas like New York City beyond their usual strongholds in the South and Southwest.
“Cowboy is cool right now,” said Shane Holman, Vice President of Western Footwear Sales for Arias. “It’s a trend. It’s on fire!
#Yeehaw #NYC #wild #time #rodeo #town
Image Source : nypost.com