What are the biggest questions facing Colorado concert fans in 2024?
They’re not entirely different than last year, but with a few expensive, concerning tweaks. Colorado’s Front Range is set to continue its roaring comeback, which began in 2021 and has only grown with a record number of shows, artists and venues absorbing the ever-increasing demand for live acts.
That translates to mixed results for Colorado music fans and those traveling from out to state for shows and festivals.
At the very least, it’ll be another record-setting year for the number of shows and overall attendance, following a national, year-over-year increase in average grosses of 53%, . That industry publication gleefully described the 2022-to-2023 jump as “the great return becomes the historic golden age.”
In other words: Buy your tickets as soon as you can. While some venues are likely to be booked for every date on the calendar (ahem, Red Rocks), seemingly offering more options than ever, that schedule also implies huge demand and, as we’ve seen, instant sell-outs for still-ascendant genres such as electronic dance music.
Last year featured massive tours from Taylor Swift and Beyonce, the absence of which would seemingly depress expectations for 2024. But the overall momentum is likely to carry over: ticket sales were up 18.4%, from 59 million to 70 million, and average tickets per show were up 24.25%, from 14,570 to 18,103, Pollstar reported.
This year’s rise in revenue will likely come from tours by Olivia Rodrigo, the Rolling Stones, Drake, Madonna, Bad Bunny, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Usher, Travis Scott and many others — most of them visiting Colorado venues.
Here are five things to remember as you wade into the rising waters of this year’s concerts.
1. Will ticket prices remain stubbornly high?
Yes. The continuing increase in prices springs from tangled roots, including artists’ and promoters’ understandable drive to recoup 2020 and 2021 losses due to COVID shutdowns and decreased capacity. Average ticket prices shot up 23.33%, from $106.07 to $130.81, last year, according to industry reports, and analysts expect , due in part to inflation.
Promoters have also said that as long as fans are willing to pay, prices won’t come down. That’s evident in a number of already sold-out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Mission Ballroom and other marquee venues, with tickets for huge concerts at some venues going for more than $100 in otherwise “cheap” sections.
For example, tickets for Madonna’s Celebration tour, visiting Ball Arena on March 19, are running at $160 for new seats, and up to $246 in verified resales in the nosebleed sections, according to Ticketmaster.
Ongoing scrutiny of ticket-selling practices is, as ever, unlikely to make a difference in your wallet. With service fees, “dynamic pricing” (sliding scale prices based on demand), and touring costs also alarmingly high, there is, sadly, no relief in sight for big shows.
2. Are new venues opening up?
Yes. The biggest of these — Colorado Springs’ $90 million Sunset Amphitheatre — will debut Friday, Aug. 9, owner Notes Live said last month. The luxury outdoor space already has a pair of shows from multiplatinum Colorado act OneRepublic booked to open it, as well as ostensible artist-shares in the form of country star Dierks Bentley on Aug. 31 (and at Red Rocks the very next day), and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss on Aug. 31 (in Vail the next day).
Even as Broomfield’s 6,500-seat FirstBank Center has closed, Loveland is looking to pick up some of that general-audience business with its rebranded Blue Arena, formerly the Budweiser Events Center, as well as a planned new venue at Blue’s Larimer County complex. That will be a 9,000-seat, custom-built venue aimed at soaking up Northern Colorado’s bookings, management company OVG360 said. Designs are still being finalized, but don’t be surprised if we see a groundbreaking later this year.
Two Moons Music Hall, meanwhile, will help assert the RiNo Art District as a music destination when it opens in March, adding to the upcoming opening of the Vinyl Me, Please pressing plant and Mission Ballroom’s continued dominance in the metro area.
3. Will Latin music continue its stunning rise?
It seems so, based on currently announced tours. Denver’s never been great about integrating its Spanish-speaking and English-speaking cultures, even as Latinos make up 29.2% of Denver’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and even as bilingual content has proliferated on TV, at the movies, and in music and podcast streaming.
However, venues such as Denver’s La Rumba, Aurora’s Stampede and especially Ball Arena have been hosting massive Spanish-language tours from Mexican and other Latino artists, which tend to fly under the radar of most English-speakers. And no, we don’t just mean crossover success such as Pitbull or Bad Bunny.
Did you happen to catch Carin León or MANÁ at Ball Arena, or dozens of other Spanish-language artists at state fairs and rodeos? On balance, it’s not completely new, but with dozens of big names already set — including Oscar D’Leon at the Stampede (Feb. 23), comic Sofia Niño de Rivera at the Paramount Theatre (April 21), and Caifanes at Levitt Pavilion Denver (June 14) — Denver’s on track to set a new record for Spanish-language tours.
4. Will weather continue to be a factor at outdoor shows?
Almost certainly. Unpredictable weather has long been a factor at Colorado’s hundreds of annual outdoor concerts, from early-season snow to mid-summer hail and late-season ice. And yet, seemingly unprecedented events continue to occur, potentially giving pause to fans who were otherwise excited about open-air concerts.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre’s Louis Tomlinson concert in June turned into a wailing mess as nearly 100 concertgoers were treated for bloody lacerations, broken bones and other injuries due to a solstice-coinciding hail storm (seven people required hospitalization). Social media videos and accounts of the injuries only worsened the perception of chaos.
The city of Denver, which owns and manages Red Rocks, was unusually curt in its response, essentially saying that it’s just part of the deal in Colorado. But as climate change worsens and its effects reach into every season, 2024 is likely to feature even more disruption, .
That’s after 2023 tours in which heat, dust and wildfire smoke affected Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder’s voice in Paris; “Jason Aldean collapsed onstage from heat stroke during a performance in Hartford, Conn.; and Disturbed canceled a Phoenix gig because their equipment wouldn’t turn on in the 117-degree heat,” Billboard reported.
“Fans, meanwhile, have been forced to evacuate to tents, cars and venue bathrooms amidst storms, and risked overheating both at Ed Sheeran’s Pittsburgh show in July and Las Vegas concert in September,” according to the report.
Colorado’s gorgeous outdoor venues include Red Rocks, Sunset Amphitheatre, Levitt Pavilion Denver, Mishawaka Amphitheatre, Dillon Amphitheatre, Gerald R. Ford Amphitheatre, Denver Botanic Gardens, and the 18,000-seat Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre. At all of them, consider bringing seats or something sturdy to shelter under, in addition to the usual ponchos and cold-weather gear, and carefully watch weather reports on your phone.
5. Will there be more all-ages and sober options?
Definitely. One of the beautiful things about the evolution of concerts in the 2020s is the renewed emphasis on all-ages shows (even with punk shows and cannabis-celebrating acts at Red Rocks), but also the wellness of fans who don’t imbibe or otherwise use drugs while enjoying live music.
The new options include sober and all-ages support at homegrown music festivals such as The Underground Music Showcase, thanks to the nonprofit Youth on Record, which also fills programming gaps and offers an ambitious program of young-artist development and industry conferences (Impact Days). Expect to see even more of that, including support for LGBTQ artists, at this year’s summer event, as well as at Denver Pride Fest.
Denver’s The Phoenix, which programs sober exercise and yoga activities, is also likely to show up at concerts to rally sober music fans, although local dates have yet to be announced for its . And along with even more sober-bar and mocktail options at watering holes around the state, we’re hoping to see the revival of Sundown Colorado, a sober dance-music event that took last year off .
Add sober jams and open mics in spaces ranging from Westminster to Colorado Springs to that and you’ve got a clear-headed recipe for making concerts more accessible.
