Dream Bigger
Making his life a party
Adam Carrillo, beside his private lake
Adam Carrillo found fame and a modest fortune on the professional bull-riding circuit. Now he’s trying for a second bite at the apple of dreams. He wants to turn his Stephenville-area ranch into Party Central for this swath of Texas.
The performance stage is in place. The site for the beer tent has been staked out. Bathrooms and showers are under construction. Eighty-five acres have been turned over for camping, lounging and frolicking. And by Labor Day weekend — which is to say, party time — the cattle that wander freely about the ranch will have been rounded up and transported elsewhere.
When the party’s over and the anticipated 4,000 attendees have gone home, planning will start for the 2010 version. Hey, every man needs a hobby.
Carrillo grew up in El Paso, and eventually became one-half of the famed (in professional bull-riding circles) Carrillo twins. Adam and Gilbert Carrillo spent years in big arenas and small, dusty outposts, sometimes riding in three different events a day and getting between them by chartered plane. Together the brothers claimed $1 million in winnings in more than a decade of competition. Both also took something else away from the arena: multiple injuries. In Adam’s case, those included many broken toes, concussions, countless stitches, two broken ankles, a broken leg, and having the left side of his face crushed.
That last injury caused Carrillo to ponder whether there were many more bull rides in his future. There weren’t. “It was time to let go,” he says. “Reality says, ‘You can’t do it anymore.’”
He retired to his 210-acre ranch with his wife and two children, promoted some bull riding events and started a metal fabrication business. He also built a pavilion next to the 40-acre lake on his property. It was a perfect place for drinking beer and playing music. Carrillo knows this because people kept showing up to do those two things. “Everybody, my friends, and then their friends, and then other friends of their friends, they’d just come out,” he says.
Would we call this Texaroo?
At some point, Carrillo realized that if people were going to show up anyway, he might as well make an event of it. Thus was “Labor Day at the Lake” born. It started modestly — a couple of bands, a day-long party — but soon metastasized. A barbecue cook-off was added. Then a bass fishing tournament. When Erath County recently voted to allow off-premises sale of alcohol, the beer tent was planned. The party expanded to three days, and the roster of musical acts swelled to two dozen.
Carrillo and the buddy who’s helping organize the event have already committed $40,000 to music acts alone. There’s also the cost of promotion, various bits of gear, and making the site ready to accommodate thousands. In short, what will be a party to everyone else is an expensive chore for Carrillo. And because he hopes this event will evolve into a Texas version of Bonnaroo, it may well turn into full-time work.
And thus we come to the existential question the center of Carrillo’s life these days: When your business is partying, what do you do to relax? Accounting?
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