When Brent Fedrizzi drives the 70 miles from Denver to Colorado Springs, he sees concert fans — and lots of them.
“If you’ve been to those communities up and down I-25, you can see that there are a lot of folks living and working and playing there that can support their own shows,” said Fedrizzi, the co-president and COO of AEG Presents Rocky Mountains. “And now we have the extra tools to do that.”
Those tools include new venues such as Sunset Amphitheater, the Springs’ upscale space scheduled to host OneRepublic, Dierks Bentley and other big acts when it opens in August. The 8,000-capacity venue is helping to soak up a growing demand for live music along the Front Range and in the high country — and loosening Denver’s historic grip on the state’s biggest concerts.
Artists such as Vampire Weekend aren’t just playing Red Rocks Amphitheatre (July 19) when they visit Colorado. They’re also booked at the 3,656-capacity Dillon Amphitheater (July 20), and maybe even Vail’s Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater. When Slightly Stoopid this month announced its Aug. 8-10 Colorado run, it included all of them.
It’s a trend that doesn’t just benefit the average concert fan, it’s also one that’s being driven by them, promoters say. Now that Colorado’s live-music options are finally meeting demand, they’re also eroding what are known as “radius clauses,” or contracts that prevent artists from playing too close, too often, and cutting into sales. Now, artists are often hitting every stop along I-25, and many just off I-70, instead of playing there every other year from Denver.
“We don’t really feel that they cannibalize each other, and that’s what has changed,” Fedrizzi said. “Back in the day, people from the Springs just drove to Denver for shows. But now there’s a massive populace down there, so let’s try to serve that community in their backyard.”
As the largest promoter in the region, and one owned by Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz, AEG Presents is happy to sell tickets to those people. But fans are increasingly saving gas money by not having to travel far to see their favorite artists. It’s a post-pandemic reality across the state as promoters double-dip in overlapping markets, scheduling artists at venues that are, in some cases, barely an hour away from one another.
“We’re the first real baby market that has become its own market,” said JW Roth, owner of Sunset. He praised Springs venues such as the Pikes Peak Center and Broadmoor World Arena for setting the stage. “We’re keeping more economic-impact dollars in the city these days.”
“We’ve tested the waters and been able to play off of a Denver show and still sell well here,” said Susan Trafton, assistant general manager of Loveland’s Blue FCU Arena (formerly Budweiser Events Center). “The old-school thinking was, ‘Oh my God, if they play Red Rocks we can’t possibly sell enough tickets to justify a show here!’ It’s the same with Ball Arena. But we’re our own market now, and not relying on Denver demographics to sell tickets.”
Average ticket prices have reached their highest-ever levels and outpaced inflation, last year increasing 23.33% from $106.07 to $130.81, according to industry reports, with service fees in some cases reaching 30% of face value.
And yet, attendance and sales have also hit record levels since the concert industry came back fully in 2022. Last year, promoters saw massive profits thanks to stadium tours from Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and others. Anyone who wants a piece seems poised to get one.
“If an artist can sell out Red Rocks and still have more demand (but not quite enough for a second night), it might make sense to add a second show at a smaller venue,” wrote Kathryn Griffin, events manager at Meow Wolf Denver, in an email. “Or a recent artist at Meow Wolf could have sold out a 2,000-cap room in Denver, but instead opted to play four or five smaller, more intimate shows around Colorado (including Boulder and Fort Collins) for roughly the same number of overall attendees.”
That translates to evenly spread options, as opposed to a consolidation of audiences with multi-night runs at the same large venue. Meow Wolf Denver’s own Perplexiplex joined the Denver scene in 2021, and has since gained momentum with a mix of touring and local bands, drag events, fashion shows and other performances. They’re pulling people in from across the metro area — but not as many as they might have a decade ago.
“What we tell agents is that there are a lot of people here who don’t live in Denver, or want to drive to Denver,” said David Weingarden, vice president of concerts and events at Boulder’s Z2 Entertainment, which books and operates the Boulder Theater and Fox Theatre. “Boulder and Fort Collins are so much more than just college towns now, with a year-round population of music fans.”
Loveland’s Blue FCU, for example, used to track a discrete, Northern Colorado metro area of 400,000 or so that it could draw from. Its latest data has seen that amount double, pulling people from Longmont, Windsor and Timnath. Loveland’s Ranch Complex is also set to host a brand new, 9,000-seat arena on the same site as Blue, Trafton said, which will provide even more flexibility in the size and schedule of Northern Colorado bookings. (Designs are still being finalized.)
But simply building a new venue does not ensure success. Bookings need to be attention-grabbing and competitive with similar-sized spaces. Neighborhood and city leaders need to agree it’s a benefit, as opposed to a noise, traffic and safety nuisance. Without those — or nearby restaurants, bars and other businesses that create a mini-entertainment ecosystem — venues can feel like an albatross instead of a jetpack.
The closure and impending demolition of the FirstBank Center in Broomfield, for example, is not likely to leave a hole in the music scene because there are other, more attractive venues waiting in line. The 6,500-capacity arena, which was built for $45 million and opened in 2006, hosted plenty of big acts over the years, including tour kickoffs for Tom Petty and The Killers, as well as massive EDM and jam-band stands.
But the FirstBank Center opened three years after Loveland’s same-sized Budweiser Events Center. Back then, shows were fewer and farther between, and despite its early success, FirstBank Center’s booking slipped post-pandemic. Contrast that with the iconic Red Rocks, which is hosting a record 200 or so concerts this year, nearly all of them expected to sell out.
It’s not unheard of for a big artist to play a high-priced show at Aspen’s Belly Up, for example, before hitting Denver and other Colorado markets. Some artists will play a show or two at Red Rocks as well as a “smaller” one at RiNo’s sliding-capacity Mission Ballroom.
But boutique plays, or unusual shows at venues such as Estes Park’s Stanley Hotel, are starting to rival high country folk-and-blues festivals as attractive stops for bands — and are all neatly packaged, thanks to AEG Presents’ dominance, which far outstrips national players such as Live Nation in the regional market.
“We could never get an A-level artist like Taylor Swift in our building. We’re just too small,” said Blue FCU’s Trafton. “But we can barely keep up with demand here. A lot of artists are realizing you can play three or four sold-out shows all within a three-hour drive of one another, and we all benefit from that.”
