RodeoHouston 2020

RodeoHouston unveils exciting and extreme new attractions for 2020

Be a part of New York New York at RodeoHouston.

Photo courtesy of RodeoHouston

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo will have a bevy of new things popping off for 2020.

Let's start off with The Social Spur, the Rodeo's new social lounge. Located near the McNee entrance, it will feature music, TVs, photo opportunities, and engaging activations for visitors. It will also offer phone charging stations, a water refill station and seating areas for attendees to relax and recharge during their visit.

Rodeo-goers can also get a glimpse of the 2020 shopping opportunities, from clothing to home goods, located inside Hall E in NRG Center. The space is good for photo opportunities for fans to show off their own Rodeo fashion.

Speaking of photo opps, attendees can commemorate their 2020 #RodeoHouston experience with a new, larger-than-life 3-D photo opportunity. Rodeo guests can wrangle their friends for an Insta-worthy close-up in front of oversized letters that spell out R-O-D-E-O.

Party animals
Now, let's get into the animal stuff. The Extreme Dogs show, located outdoors in The Junction, will feature rescue dogs and includes all your favorite dog sports like agility, dock diving, high jump, weave pole racing, disc, and tricks with a brilliant cast. Meanwhile, the mare and foal fan favorite known as Born to Buck will feature a special tribute that showcases generations of bucking horses and celebrates their athleticism and importance to the sport, and to the cowboys and cowgirls who treat them like family. This will also be located in The Junction.

Don't forget about Agventure Park, located in Agventure, which will offer a parakeet encounter, giving Rodeo-goers the opportunity to visit the walk-in aviary, interact and feed the friendly birds. Also located in Agventure will be a balloon art display where an artist will create a balloon-filled mural featuring a scene that will evolve during the run of the Rodeo.

Rodeo-goers can see how their farming skills stack up against the competition with Farming Simulator, an interactive game that allows players to build their own virtual farm from the ground up. The exhibit, located on the east side of NRG Center, will include six stations where participants will test their farming skills in a timed hay stacking competition.

The Big Apple in H-Town
In the new carnival attractions department, New York New York is a family-friendly funhouse featuring two levels of fun with a New York-themed concept. As for new carnival games, Bottle Up is an old favorite that tests the skills and ability of the player to balance and stand up on a sloped platform, and Top Glo is a group game that allows a player and 13 friends to compete against each other by spraying a water gun at a target, racing to the top. Also, half-price carnival packs are going digital for 2020. Rodeo carnival guests will need a smartphone to access their ride/game tickets and coupons by downloading the free RodeoHouston App and the Rodeo Carnival App.

New for 2020, the rodeo will host a Sensory Friendly Experience on Thursday, March 5 from 10 am to 1 pm in select areas of the carnival to promote an accommodating and positive experience for all Rodeo guests with sensory sensitivities or challenges. During this time, there will be minimal lights and sounds permitted in the carnival, according to a press release.

Cook-off and more
As for contests, The World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest Jr. Cook-off will be held on Saturday, February 29 — open to teams only — and 25 children ages 8-14 years old will be chosen to participate via random drawing. In the School Art Graphic Design Poster Contest, high school students who attend a school currently enrolled in the School Art Program may compete by graphically designing an advertising poster encouraging students to participate in the School Art Program. And, in the Industrial Crafts Competition, students from Houston-area school districts will be armed with the project plan, necessary materials and tools to build a barbecue skid/smoker. Constructed projects will be displayed at the east end of NRG Center beginning Friday, March 13, and will be judged by industry experts.

New times for old favorites
There will be a few date and time changes. Go Tejano Day will be on Sunday, March 8. Black Heritage Day will be on Friday, March 13. The RodeoHouston Super Shootout will be on Sunday, March 15. And, finally, the RodeoHouston Super Series Championship will be on Sunday, March 22. And, the Free Family Wednesday will have NRG Park admission for seniors (60 and over) and children (12 and under) until noon (previously 7 pm). This does not include rodeo/concert admission.

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For more tickets, schedules, and more information, visit RodeoHouston online.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 doesn't match the first movie's enthusiasm

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films like M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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