Why a Big Summer Music Festival West of Loveland Won’t Be Happening
If you've been hoping for one, you'll have to keep just imagining a big music fest coming to west Loveland. The latest effort would have seen a big 3-4 day event with multiple bands, vendors and a lot of attendees.
They used to have the fairly large Arise Music Festival for about seven years in this area west of Loveland. A major concert promoter thought Larimer County might be interested in a new festival. So far, it seems they thought wrong.
AEG Presents, the mega-promoter that brings dozens of concerts to Colorado every year, including the Budweiser Events Center, wanted to bring a new festival to the area known as Sunrise Ranch, west of Loveland. That area has long been considered for being an outdoor amphitheater of some sort; this plan would have been a 3-day concert fest with three stages.
According to the Reporter-Herald, AEG's proposal noted that their "AEG Music Festival" would be expecting over 14,000 people to attend/work the event which would have been held the same weekend as Loveland's classic Corn Roast Festival August 5-7. Also going on that weekend is the Venus de Miles all-women's bike ride, that will be needing to use the main county road that's west Sunrise Ranch, County Road 29; so that would increase the congestion in the area.
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Prior to AEG meeting with Larimer County about the event on February 6, 2023, things were already not looking great for getting the festival approved. There are land-use issues in the way (which is why the Arise Music Festival stopped happening,) as well as concerns about evacuation plans, in case of a wildfire in the area.
At the meeting between AEG and Larimer County at a land-use hearing on February 6, 2023, AEG's proposal for the festival was denied. Maybe AEG will come back with a new proposal, with a different date and improved evacuation plans that the County can agree to.
At some point, it would seem, that "Sunrise Ranch" area will be the scene of some sort of large-scale event. Time will tell.