Telluride and Real Estate Blog

Bluegrass Festival producers are halfway to winning approval of new two-day concert

By Owen Perkins, Telluride Daily Planet - January 23, 2025

Neil Young’s two-night stand on Telluride’s Fred Shellman Stage in the fall of 2016, a joint venture between Planet Bluegrass and SBG Productions.  Planet Bluegrass is proposing a new standalone concert over two nights this August. (Photo courtesy of SBG productions.)

You don’t have to be fluent in tea leaves to read the writing on the wall. After a preliminary thumbs up from Town Council and unanimous support from the Parks and Recreation Commission in the first two steps of a four-step process, Planet Bluegrass is poised to gain approval for a new event in Town Park this Aug. 22 and 23.

It will be the first standalone concert Planet Bluegrass has put on in Telluride since 2016, when they did their second consecutive year of Pretty Lights playing Town Park the weekend before Labor Day weekend and Neil Young playing a pair of shows Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 on the Fred Shellman stage.

“We spent a lot of money as a community on our stage, and we should be hosting world-class bands,” Councilmember Geneva Shaunette said at the Jan. 14 Town Council meeting. “We have three really great heritage, 30-plus, 50-plus-year festivals, but it's important to bring younger people into town and different kinds of people that maybe haven't been here before.”

Though Planet Bluegrass’ initial intention was to bring back Pretty Lights in 2025, that booking fell through while waiting for the pending approval, and the event is being planned for a “to-be-determined” artist.

“There's so many cool options that could fit,” Planet Bluegrass Vice President Zach Tucker told the Daily Planet. “We're trying not to pin ourselves down. We have the coolest venue to come see music on the planet. Let's put a cool band in there and enjoy it.”

The proposed two-day concert event will be an evening event, with gates opening at 5 p.m. and music starting at 5:30 p.m. with an 11 p.m. curfew. Building an event as a traditional concert with one or two opening acts enables Planet Bluegrass to go after a bigger act than they typically secure for a festival setting, when they’ve got to pay as many as eight acts a day.

“It's a fun kind of change of pace,” Tucker said. “It's a little different model for us, and fun to do shows like that.”

It also gives the town the chance to host 9,000 concertgoers who are free to shop and spend money in town all day long, as opposed to spending the day on their tarps. Planet Bluegrass estimates the concerts should bring approximately $8.6 million of revenue to the local economy, including at least $90,000 in taxes for the Town of Telluride.

“I'm in favor of this,” said Mayor Pro Tem Meehan Fee. “Our economy is down. Our businesses are clamoring for this. We need visitors coming in.”

The biggest challenges are minimizing the impact on existing events, including youth and adult soccer games and practices, Saturday’s Telluride Mountain Run (TMR), which has a 12-year history in town and has used that weekend for its event since 2019, and the Telluride Film Festival, which plans to set up its hospitality tent on Sunday as it begins loading in for the Labor Day weekend festival.

“We're never going to be able to compete with (a big event’s) fiscal impact,” TMR co-director Fischer Hazen told the Planet, drawing on his lifetime of insight having grown up in Telluride to see the value beyond the dollar signs. “The strength of this town is the diversity of characters and culture and art and festivals. Navigating that diverse fabric of arts and events is integral to the character of the town.”

Hazen and Co-Director Jared Vilhauer wrote Council a letter explaining, “The proposed Planet Bluegrass event, numbering 9,000 people, in the park is a worst-case scenario for our logistics and ability to produce a safe and successful race.”

Fee and other members of Town Council were adamant about protecting TMR’s event as a top priority, placing high expectations on Planet Bluegrass.

“One of the big things I would be looking for in (Parks and Recreation’s) shoes is that real, above-and-beyond give from Planet Bluegrass to really accommodate that smaller event and make sure that they are able to cohabitate,” said Councilmember Dan Enright.

Jessie Rae Arguelles was the only council member to speak in opposition to the event, though she was supportive of continuing with the process of sending the proposal to the boards and commissions.

“I appreciate that the economic benefit is obviously a big consideration, but the people that I've spoken to about this thus far have been very resistant,” Arguelles said. “Our summers are already really busy. Taking into consideration the Mountain Run and the importance of maintaining smaller events that aren't just music and ‘party-based’ is important to me as well.”

With a greenlight from Council to proceed with the application process outside of the normal timeline, Parks and Rec took up the issue at its Jan. 22 meeting and, despite voicing multiple concerns, the commission voted unanimously to approve the application, setting up a subsequent hearing before the Commission on Arts and Special Events (CASE) at its Feb. 5 meeting and final approval from Council at its Feb. 25 meeting.

“We're dealing with an established partner who has shown year after year that everything they do, they do well,” said Parks and Rec Vice Chair Tommy Thatcher. “That weekend has history. We've lost music in the park with Ride Fest, and this gives us an opportunity to showcase that stage that's there.  It's got minimal impact on youth and adult activities.”

Midway through the process, Hazen seemed more optimistic than the picture he and Vilhauer painted in their letter to Council. He stressed his appreciation for Planet Bluegrass’ efforts to accommodate TMR and praised the work of Town Council, the commissions, and the staff for working toward a solution.

“Initially, there's a gut reaction that there's going to be insurmountable challenges with a 9,000-person event, when we operate a 400-person event in very close proximity in a town that has limited resources of lodging, camping, etc.,” Hazen told the Planet. “In an ideal world, there wouldn't be a large event operating on the same weekend as TMR. Ultimately, Planet Bluegrass has a really good record with putting on events in town, so I'm glad it's (them) that we're working with. They're working to try and help address our concerns, and I do think we're heading down the right path.”

To read the original Telluride Daily Planet article please click this link.