Coachella and Bonnaroo Organizers Are Preparing a “Super Festival” in Denver

Maybe the festival bubble hasn’t burst just yet. While the market has largely been shifting towards slightly scaled-down events in recent years, AEG and Superfly, the producers behind Coachella and Bonnaroo, respectively, have announced plans for a new major festival in Colorado with their sights set on a 2018 mid-September debut.

The tentative plans for the “super festival” have the two companies looking at a capacity of anywhere between 30,000 and 60,000 people, and they are pursuing the Overland Park Golf Course in Denver as a top choice for a venue, with other options prepared as backup. Meetings are currently being conducted to gauge local support for the festival and CEO of AEG Live Rocky Mountains Chuck Morris noted to Westword, “The investment of festivals is an absolute bloody fortune, and we’ve just got to be sure. We’re in the phase of looking at all options.” Their hope is to keep the venue as close to Denver as possible so as to attract the city’s younger population for what they’re touting as a “Coachella-esque experience.”

According to Morris, plans have been in motion for the festival since AEG’s Mile High Music Festival shut down in 2010 after three years. Current complaints revolve around potential damage to the land, along with the fact that using the golf course, which is public land, for private gain makes some understandably a little uncomfortable.

However, if large festivals are to remain essential to the music scene, it seems imperative that they penetrate new markets and Colorado seems like one of the best options out there. It’s high time (pun intended) that the state places itself firmly on the music festival map.