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January 29, 2008
Denver music festival for your parents
Dicks's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City
What started as talks of a Denver version of Austin City Limits and Coachella is now an event headlined by Tom Petty. Steve Winwood and 48 other unnamed bands will also play.
After a major setback in location, the Mile High Music and Arts Festival will go on in July, but at the complex of soccer fields that surround Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City instead of City Park.Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers will be one of the festival's headliners, and Steve Winwood — on tour this summer with Petty — will also play the two-day event, which could draw up to 50,000 people per day on July 19-20.
In late December, Denver Zoo president Craig Piper told promoter AEG Live and city officials that he could not support the festival in City Park because of possible impact on the animals. At that point, AEG Live turned to Dick's Sporting Goods Park, sources told The Denver Post on Monday. The sources asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the new plan or acts at this time.
The park's owner is longtime AEG Live collaborator Stan Kroenke, owner of the Colorado Avalanche, the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Rapids and the Pepsi Center. He built Dick's Sporting Goods Park for the Rapids.
AEG Live will announce in the next month that the festival will take place in the fields surrounding the Commerce City stadium — taking over the 24 full-size, fully lit grassy fields to the south and east of the facility. The promoter is not planning to use the stadium. AEG Live will likely go forward with its original plan of two free-standing main stages and three smaller stages, allowing for 50 acts to perform over two days and nights.
The first major concert held in the stadium, Kenny Chesney in mid-2007, had mixed marks. The sold-out show was a crowd-pleaser, but many fans asked for refunds because of poor acoustics.
[AEG Live chief Chuck] Morris, who came up with the idea for the festival, would not confirm the news, but he did say: "If in fact the festival will be at the soccer complex next to the stadium, that's great because it's an amazingly beautiful area with lots of grass — not unlike Coachella and its polo fields. It's very pretty over there, as it faces the city and the mountains.(via)
Posted by Merry Swankster at January 29, 2008 02:36 PM
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Comments
I would like to know the band lineup for the festival and if tickets are on sale already.
Posted by: Larry Martinez at May 21, 2008 02:55 AM
Posted by: Sebastian at May 21, 2008 11:40 AM
