Allen Becker helped define live entertainment in Houston, booking boating events and concerts in the Astrodome. The local legend died this week at 90.
ACE Theatrical Group’s Allen Becker, center, signs the beam during the traditional topping out ceremony of the Smart Financial Centre.As a persistently swelling city built upon a swamp, Houston owes much of its prosperous present to people who envisioned what it could be. Allen Becker was among the notable Houstonians who saw potential for growth and facilitated that growth in ways that benefit Houstonians today.
Becker’s career offered a variation on the old “Field of Dreams” notion “If you build it, they will come.” He knew the right spaces hosting the right events could prove a prosperous cultural and financial endeavor.Roy Hofheinz was a larger-than-life cultural figure who possessed and executed a vision to pull sports like baseball and football indoors in Houston, a move that proved necessary in a swampy place where games could be unpleasant experiences during the summer months.
An insurance salesman in the early 1960s, Becker struck up a partnership with his friend, banker Sidney Shlenker. The two started PACE, an events business, in 1966. “It seemed a good opportunity,” Becker told the Chronicle of the Astrodome. He saw other venues the same way, including The Summit in Houston.
“PACE Theatrical revitalized and advanced an unstable and disorganized touring industry,” Becker’s son, Brian Becker, said. He pointed out also that PACE Theatrical helped restore struggling historic theaters around the country. “With offices on each coast and abroad, people often questioned why PACE remained headquartered in Houston,” Becker’s son Gary Becker said. “The unwavering answer for dad was simple. Houston is home.”
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