AUSTIN — Fort Worth brought its own flavor of weird to Austin for this year's South by Southwest.

In a large warehouse space near the giant tech conference and music and film festivals, the North Texas city threw a celebration of its own artisans, entrepreneurs and innovations.

The event Tuesday and Wednesday included Fort Worth-made beer and whiskey, backyard performances by local musicians and a market of local goods, such as dangle earrings made from the leather scraps of cowboy boots.

The effort shows how seriously the city is taking warnings that it is falling behind in the battle to attract millennials and businesses in the knowledge economy.

In a new strategic plan released in December, the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce acknowledged it had "a talent problem." It set goals to increase its college-educated workforce by 5 percent and recruit the corporate headquarters of four Fortune 1000 companies over the next four years.

Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, an avid cyclist, led SXSW attendees on a morning bike ride Tuesday through downtown Austin. On the bike ride, Price said, she spoke to people from New York, Chicago and London about her hometown.

The event showed off the high-tech side of Cowtown, too, from a panel about startups and venture capital to a virtual reality simulator of an urban air taxi that's being developed by Fort Worth-based Bell. A wall inside the party space featured faces of Fort Worth's diverse creative class, from Grammy-nominated musician Leon Bridges to Travis and Emma Heim, the couple behind Heim Barbecue, one of the state's top-ranked barbecue joints.

Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price says the two-day event at SXSW is another way to "raise the profile" of the city and catch the attention of creatives. (Julia Robinson / Special Contributor)

"Fort Worth is a fun city, a great business success," said Mitch Whitten, vice president of marketing at Visit Fort Worth. "We try not to be too flashy, and I think we’ve not always taken opportunities like this to step out and tell our story.”

But he said the city's story is starting to get out. It hit a record high of 9.1 million annual visitors in 2017. Last month, New York-based Thrillist ranked Fort Worth the most underrated city in Texas.

Fort Worth civic and business leaders say they want to make an impression on the tech-savvy, creative types who attend SXSW and inspire them to visit Fort Worth — or even move or start a business there. They're trying to raise the city's profile and close its talent gap by attracting college-educated millennials.

Just over 29 percent of millennials in Fort Worth-Arlington have college degrees, according to a recent report from the Brookings Institution. That's significantly lower than in Dallas-Plano-Irving, where over 38 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds have a bachelor's degree or higher, the report said.

Rambo Elliot, a 32-year-old photographer, snapped pictures of SXSW attendees in front of a Western-themed photo booth that she built. Since moving from Little Rock as a kid, she said she's enjoyed Fort Worth's world-class museums and its warm weather.

As a professional photographer, Elliot said she gets questions about why she hasn't moved to Los Angeles or a certain other Texas city. "Every time I meet someone who tells me I'm weird, they tell me to move to Austin," she said, laughing.

But Elliot said Fort Worth has the right blend of big city, low cost of living and friendly people. And that's what makes it the right place for her.