<\/p>\n
The Underground Music Showcase, a summertime staple of South Broadway in Denver, is moving to RiNo.<\/p>\n
The mile-long music festival has shown up every summer for more than 20 years in the cleared out parking lots, lounges and dive bars along a six-block stretch. Last year, after the Denver-grown indie band DeVotchKa wrapped their set, festival staff came onstage and delivered something like a eulogy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an emotional time for sure, it was a stressful year,\u201d said Keanan Stoner, former CEO of Two Parts, which co-owns the festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By then, the announcement had circulated: Youth on Record, a nonprofit that owned the other half of the festival, was out \u2014 ditching the fest to focus on their mission of providing music education to Denver youth. No one had stepped up to keep the festival going alongside Two Parts.<\/p>\n
As far as Stoner could tell, that was that. \u201cBut we were very careful about the language, saying this is \u2018the end of the festival as you know it\u2019 and \u2018the last in its current form,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted to make sure it wasn\u2019t being buried.\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple of months later, the RiNo Business Improvement District approached Two Parts with interest in moving the festival to RiNo. This summer, after taking zero years off, the festival will reemerge in the northwest Denver neighborhood.<\/p>\n
The Underground Music Showcase bubbled up in 2001 at the Bluebird Theater on Colfax: four bands, one night, $5. The showcase bounced back and forth between the Bluebird and the Gothic Theater in Englewood until 2006, when it settled into a strip of South Broadway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over its 25-year run, the festival grew to a three-day extravaganza with more than 200 bands across a dozen stages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During that time, the festival changed hands from former Denver Post reporter John Moore to the Post\u2019s then-music critic Ricardo Baca, to The Denver Post itself through the paper\u2019s community foundation, and finally, in 2018, to Two Parts, which ran the festival for four years before bringing Youth on Record onboard in 2022 as co-owner.<\/p>\n
Despite an unrestricted $1 million grant by philanthropist MacKenzie Scott which Youth on Record pushed toward the festival, the nonprofit couldn\u2019t make the books work. Production costs and safety measures were up and ticket sales were down, executive director Jami Duffy told Denverite last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n South Broadway\u2019s infrastructure also limited the festival\u2019s growth, said Stoner, who is transitioning to a new role as UMS festival director. \u201cIt was 1 mile up and down one road, with residentials on both sides.\u201d RiNo is more of a \u201cblob of roads,\u201d he said. \u201cWith a bunch of nooks and crannies\u201d to expand into.<\/p>\n