live entertainment industry<\/a>,\u201d he says. \u201cWhile industries like Major League Baseball and the NFL had spent years refining every detail of the fan experience, maximizing dwell time, enhancing amenities and creating unforgettable moments, the music industry hadn\u2019t caught up. The level of intentionality just wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\nThe $130 million, 8,000-seat Ford Amphitheater on the north side of Colorado Springs has been the standard bearer for this vision since it opened in August 2024. Roth says his experience as a rock fan (he\u2019s an avid vinyl and guitar collector whose first date with his wife was a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert) informed the venue\u2019s design. At Ford Amphitheater, that means wider seats and aisles, lower ticket prices and 130 Luxe FireSuites, luxury suites with fire pits and dedicated restrooms. VENU has already sold 90 of them for $250,000 apiece.<\/p>\n
The idea was sparked by \u201cthe largest fire pit in the history of backyard fire pits\u201d at Roth\u2019s house. \u201cIt always struck me how natural, relaxed and connected everyone felt,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s when it hit me:\u202fThis\u202fis what\u2019s missing at concerts. That sense of warmth and togetherness. So, we brought it to life. The FireSuite is a luxury suite with a fire pit in the center, under the stars, an intimate, elevated space where fans can connect, relax and still be right in the heart of the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Terri Liebler, VENU\u2019s president of growth and strategy, says Ford Amphitheater exceeded expectations by welcoming more than 100,000 guests in its truncated 2024 season. It also earned a nomination for \u201cBest New Concert Venue of the Year\u201d by Pollstar <\/em>magazine but lost the award to the $2 billion Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.<\/p>\nBeyond building Ford-like amphitheaters in several cities in Oklahoma and Texas, VENU is developing a mid-sized indoor music hall in Centennial, Colorado, that will feature the first indoor version of the FireSuites and have a capacity of 1,600 to 2,000 people. \u201cWe want to be respectful of the market, and what the market can bear,\u201d says Liebler<\/p>\n
An experience-based economy<\/strong><\/h3>\nColorado occupies a unique perch in the broader live music landscape. \u201cWith major tourism drivers like skiing, hiking and national parks, music venues here often benefit from \u2018experience stacking,\u2019 where concert attendance is part of a broader leisure itinerary,\u201d says Liebler. \u201cFord Amphitheater\u2019s short inaugural 2024 season saw 5,500 different zip codes ranging from all 50 states.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Seman, a professor at Colorado State University who has built a career researching the surprisingly strong economic impact of live music, recites a maxim he heard about Colorado: \u201cLive music is part of our fabric, but it\u2019s not our identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not everything,\u201d he says. \u201cIt can be a feature, and it just keeps growing, because there are opportunities for that, Red Rocks being the prime example. People travel all over the world just to go to Red Rocks. You\u2019re also increasingly seeing it at mountain resorts, which are perfect for hosting live events and festivals, because they have the infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are still a few voids in the state\u2019s venue map, Seman notes, but Ford Amphitheater filled a big one in Colorado Springs. He also sees space in Fort Collins and Northern Colorado, another area in Colorado that Liebler says VENU is eyeing.<\/p>\n
In the longer term, the industry\u2019s opportunities and challenges are tied to the younger generations that are prime consumers of live music: Millennials, Generation Z and Generation Alpha. \u201cThey truly want to spend money on events and experiences more so than items, so that plays into it as well,\u201d says Seman.<\/p>\n
However, another broad trend threatens to upend a staple of live music\u2019s business model, he adds. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing Generation Z drinking a lot less. That\u2019s a great thing, but in terms of venues, it\u2019s already hitting them hard, and it\u2019s just going to get worse, because right now, Millennials and Generation Z are about 51 percent of the population.\u201d<\/p>\n
With this in mind, Seman says he sees benefits to a model where venues are owned by municipalities and nonprofits. \u201cMy hypothesis is these venues are more than just economic development, it\u2019s social and cultural development,\u201d he explains. \u201cCommunities are using venues for interacting with schools, helping develop education programs. A lot of the people who work for them are very entrepreneurial. They go on to start their own things, like live sound for touring bands. Oftentimes, it\u2019s a place where people meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The missing piece<\/strong><\/h3>\nLevitt Pavilion Denver strikes a balance between bar sales and community support. The Denver offshoot of a national nonprofit, the 6,500-capacity outdoor venue opened in Denver\u2019s Ruby Hill Park in 2017. The construction budget was about $5 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cLevitt really exists in this space between the larger music venues that are typically for-profit enterprises and a nonprofit, mission-driven model,\u201d says Meghan McNamara, the venue\u2019s executive director. \u201cMost music venues of our size, with our production capacity, are for-profit organizations, and I think what we offer the community is something that is often missing from a lot of music markets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The missing piece was \u201can accessible, all-ages venue where the programming looked a little bit different,\u201d says McNamara. \u201cNinety percent of what we do each season is free to the public, but concessions and rental and a couple of our own ticketed shows really help create a robust earned revenue stream that a lot of arts organizations are struggling with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levitt\u2019s earned revenue represented 65 percent of its 2024 income, and contributions totaled 35 percent. For 2025, that\u2019s closer to 50-50. \u201cTypically, those numbers are flipped where you have a lot of arts organizations who are closer to 60 to 70 percent contributed, and earned revenue is a puzzle that they\u2019re trying to figure out,\u201d notes McNamara. \u201cOur model allows us to make programming decisions that aren\u2019t purely profit-driven. They\u2019re about audience development, they\u2019re about community engagement, and fundraising is where we can make up that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levitt\u2019s model also allows the venue to book shows without a laser focus on the bottom line. \u201cThe market right now is really tough,\u201d says McNamara. \u201cTouring is expensive. Insurance costs for outdoor venues in particular have gone up in really significant ways. And for us, we also want to be able to program in a way that isn\u2019t just about a single show making a profit. There are things that we have on our season very intentionally that are loss leaders because they represent a culture that\u2019s not been particularly visible on stage, or because they bring out a community that has not been included previously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collaborations with the University of Denver and the School of Rock have helped Levitt engage younger patrons, she adds. \u201cI think one of the most important things that any arts organization, any music venue, can do to continue to nurture that next generation of audiences is include them in your programming.\u201d<\/p>\n
A smaller pie<\/strong><\/h3>\nBeyond Ford Amphitheater, there\u2019s no shortage of new small and mid-sized venues in Colorado. Denver\u2019s Federal Theatre had been gathering cobwebs since the early 1980s, but Scott Happel and his partners were pleased to see the interior was in \u201cshockingly good\u201d shape and pursued a roughly $250,000 renovation, he says.<\/p>\n
The 600-capacity venue is slated to open for live music in fall 2025. Happel says its size makes it a good counterpart to the 800-capacity Oriental Theater, another venue he and his partners operate.<\/p>\n
Happel says his goal is for ticket sales to cover the artist\u2019s pay and staff at the show, and alcohol pays for everything else, from rent to electricity. \u201cIt is a rare show where ticket sales end up in any percentage of a profit for a venue,\u201d he notes. \u201cArtists, more often than people think, get more than 100 percent of the door. It\u2019s always going to be bar sales that are the profit center.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf alcohol sales were to systematically drop by 25 percent, then venues would just go out of business. But of course, every music venue in the world is not going to go out of business. Things will change.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the venue perspective. For musicians, the profit center has changed markedly, Happel adds. \u201cWhen album sales were what most artists made their money on, and touring was essentially a marketing expense, you would find that the artists were getting somewhere around 70 to 75 percent of the door. As album sales dried up and artists couldn\u2019t make any money that way, everything flipped. Now the only way for artists to make money was touring, they pushed to get a higher percentage of that money, and it\u2019s settled around 85 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Happel says the shows at his venues tend to cater to an older demographic, and the broader trend of decreased drinking has yet to make an impact on shows\u2019 takes. \u201cAt some point, if a venue\u2019s only source of profit is alcohol and that source of profit dwindles, then artists make less money,\u201d he says. \u201cNobody wants to take less money, but if there\u2019s less money in the pie, even if you keep your same piece of the pie, it\u2019s less money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Happel says he\u2019d be in favor of policies allowing venues to sell cannabis edibles as a new revenue stream. \u201cIf a live music venue could sell edibles, would that make up the difference in the drop in bar sales? Potentially.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based on their economic impact, local or state governments might want to offer grants to music venues as an economic development strategy, he adds. \u201cCould a small, local, independently owned business like us be something that the city and state gives money to, versus a multibillion-dollar corporation?\u201d Happel muses. \u201cGiven my position, I certainly have opinions on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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