Organizers of the reimagined Underground Music Showcase today revealed the lineup for the 2026 summer festival, featuring a mix of touring headliners and more than 150 local acts with a focus on genre diversity.
The 25-year-old festival, which last year left the Baker neighborhood on South Broadway and is setting up in the River North Art District for the first time, will feature more than 200 performances across multiple indoor and outdoor stages in RiNo, said festival director Keanan Stoner.
It’s one of the festival’s largest lineups to date, according to Stoner, who’s also co-founder of Two Parts, the company that co-owns The UMS with (as of earlier this year) the RiNo Business Improvement District. The BID’s board has also pledged $250,000 annually for UMS title sponsorship for the next three years, which will shore up the festap estimated $1.4 million budget — and which brings the BID’s overall investment to $1 million, including an additional $250,000 stake in the UMS’s ownership.
Weekend passes for the July 24-26 event start at $95 and are on sale at , with presale passes currently at $88.50 online. The event is ADA accessible, and some shows (i.e., the ones not at 21-and-up bars) are all ages. Five dollars of each ticket’s fees go directly to the RiNo Business Improvement District to support creatives within the district, organizers added.
This year’s lineup includes 160 local bands, and national headliners with sizeable followings, including 54 Ultra, slenderbodies, Goldie Boutilier, Kaash Paige, Tommy Newport, Charlotte Sands, MAVI, Twin Shadow, King Mala, Deb Never, The Droptines and Bad Nerves.
A full lineup is available on The UMS website (see above).
“RiNo has always had a really strong connection to Denver’s independent music culture, so bringing UMS into the district feels natural in a lot of ways,” Stoner wrote in an email to The Denver Post. “The neighborhood already has this mix of longtime venues, creative spaces and underground energy that aligns really well with the spirit of the festival.”
RiNo, formerly known as the warehouse district, spans the Five Points, Cole and Globeville/Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods with a mix of more than 100 breweries, restaurants, galleries, venues, boutiques and other businesses. Even before its revival, the gritty area in the early-to-mid 2000s began hosting the Larimer Lounge, Meadowlark Lounge, The Walnut Room, Rhinoceropolis and Orange Cat DIY spaces, and other venues that laid the groundwork for its current incarnation.
The RiNo BID and Stoner are promoting RiNo as a highly walkable area, just like the fest’s former South Broadway corridor. The UMS is set up like a music festival, such as South by Southwest, where a day or weekend pass gets you into everything.
“We’re working hard to keep the footprint navigable and the experience recognizable to longtime UMS fans, while also building in more opportunities for exploration and surprise throughout the weekend,” Stoner said. “People are going to discover a lot of spaces, venues and experiences they may not have encountered otherwise.”
The UMS faces competition this year in the form of featuring more than 200 local bands that will launch at former UMS venues along South Broadway, July 23-26. While some local music fans and artists have cast it as the anti-UMS, Blucifer’s organizers have said it’s not meant as counter-programming, but rather another place to discover and celebrate new music.
Their weekend will feature “decentralized support and promotion of cool events happening that weekend, whether we’re booking them or not,” organizers wrote online. (See for more.)
“We absolutely think Denver has room for more than one multi-venue music festival because every neighborhood and every event brings a different energy and experience,” Stoner said. “UMS has evolved a lot over the years, but the core idea has always stayed the same — connecting people through live music, whether thatap in a packed club, a DIY venue or a larger outdoor stage setting.
“We’ve seen festivals come and go over the years, but ultimately, more opportunities for artists to perform, get paid and grow audiences is a good thing for the scene as a whole,” he added. “There are always more great local acts than we can fit into one lineup, so more platforms for artists only strengthen Denver’s music community.”
The UMS this year was booked by artists, venue owners and programmers who come from different corners of the music world, such as Dan Segal, Bruce Trujillo, DNA Picasso, Ariadnee Ziady and Cass Ivey, Stoner said.
Two Parts has owned The UMS for several years, and last year produced its final event with nonprofit partner Youth on Record (YOR), which owned a 30% stake. As a music education organization, YOR ultimately said costs were too high to sustain the festival, forcing it to divest and refocus on its core mission, according to executive director Jami Duffy.
Stoner estimates up to 10,000 per day could attend this year’s UMS.
