Thumping bass and rock lyrics loud enough to be heard miles away filled the air in northern Colorado Springs late last summer. The sound came from internationally recognized bands like the Beach Boys, Primus and Godsmack playing at the newly christened Ford Amphitheater.
That 8,000-person capacity high-end outdoor event space has been one of the community’s most divisive issues since its August opening. Many have been thrilled for the opportunity to finally see prominent concerts locally instead of schlepping up to Denver, watching big-name bands play the hits from boutique firepits as the sun sets behind Pikes Peak. Meanwhile, hundreds of others who live in surrounding neighborhoods have relentlessly protested the amphitheater. They see it as a window-rattling, sleep-preventing attack on their quality of life and home values.
Leaders in Colorado Springs have been in Ford Amphitheater damage control mode. Hundreds of protestors have organized, complaining of a reduced quality of life and exacerbated PTSD symptoms. They have filled City Council meetings with noise complaints and heckled amphitheater supporters from the audience of a December town hall.
“What words would you use to describe sitting across from a realtor who says you must disclose your home as being in a noise hazard zone,” said resident Murray Relf at the town hall, “that you may experience a significant loss of property value and that it may be even difficult to sell your home.”
But for the CEO of the company behind the Ford Amphitheater, months of controversy surrounding the venue have not deterred his view on the success of the space or on his national ambitions. On the contrary, JW Roth told CPR News he “couldn’t be more happy” with the amphitheater’s first year and what its success says about his place in the live music industry’s future.
Listen: Dan Boyce asks JW Roth about amphitheater noise complaints
Roth’s new company, Notes Live — which was renamed VENU in 2024 — began by building a sort of entertainment campus in the northern Colorado Springs development of Polaris Pointe: Bourbon Brothers Smokehouse and Tavern, Boot Barn Hall and, ultimately, the Ford Amphitheater. These facilities were the first iterations of what Roth envisions as national venue and hospitality brands, each filling different niches.
Of these, the amphitheater concept (called Sunset Amphitheaters until the naming rights are sold to each venue) is by far the most ambitious.
Shifting live-music trends
The all-time high for concert ticket sales was 2023, owing to the likes of Taylor Swift and Beyonce and 2024 was not far behind. Be that as it may, the pandemic years prompted demographic shifts nationwide, with lots of people moving away from big cities and into areas with either very old concert spaces or no major venues at all.
Author Dean Budnick has covered the live music industry for decades. He said VENU has been “very tactical” in where it has chosen to expand. A second Boot Barn Hall is already open in Georgia and Sunset Amphitheaters are currently under construction in four locations in Oklahoma and Texas. Five more are in the design and development phase, according to the company.
VENU is not the only company looking to build major concert spaces in mid-sized cities. Budnick said the country’s biggest concert promoters, AEG Presents and Live Nation, are making major pushes into constructing venues in those areas as well. They can’t build everywhere though, and that’s where VENU is looking to capitalize — not as competitors, but as partners.
“Even though both of those big promoters are in the business of building their own venues,” Budnick said, “If they don't already have something in place — while it might be optimal to own the venue if one had the resources — there's a lot of value in just operating the venue.”
That’s the situation at the Ford Amphitheater, where VENU has contracted with AEG Presents to fill its concert schedule.
Roth said the company’s expansion plans have accelerated in the last two years, but whether the business model has hit a bullseye remains an open question. VENU’s initial public offering last November generated a modest $13.8 million in gross proceeds and the stock has barely budged from its starting price of $10 a share since.
Will Venu have noise problems in other communities?
In January, the city announced an agreement with VENU detailing additional sound mitigation measures the company will implement at the amphitheater. These include additional sound walls, neighborhood noise monitoring stations and speaker system changes. The changes are on track to be in place before the start of the 2025 concert season, according to the city and VENU.
Listen: JW Roth says he’s committed to making the Ford Amphitheater a community treasure
Lyn Myers has lived in his home a mile and a half north of the site for more than two decades. He argues VENU has not been able to tell residents just how much these new noise measures will actually reduce the sound reaching their homes.
“I'm not confident at all, frankly,” he said. “We're actually planning on spending a fair amount of money to put up some soundproofing on our windows…Now why should we have to do that?”
Roth said it all amounts to about $3 million in changes, but stressed these are steps he did not have to take and that he believes dissent over the venue has been overblown.
“I’m doing (the mitigation measures) for a handful of people. I’m not doing that for the masses because the masses enjoy our business,” he said.
Roth said protestors honk and hold signs outside his home.
Hostility toward new open-air concert venues is not uncommon, said Budnick. No matter how much effort went into the engineering and design of a new venue, predicting and calibrating how an amphitheater will sound once it’s built in the real world can be tricky.
“I find that almost invariably there's some kind of issue that comes up locally,” he said. “And it does just take a little amount of fine tuning to make it work.”
A resident watchdog group called Ford Hurts Families says if these measures actually reduce sound below the city’s residential noise limits, there will be much to celebrate.
“However, if the concert noise pollution continues to exceed city/state limits and disrupt daily life in the surrounding neighborhoods, the 2025 Noise Hardship Permit (NHP) will be rightly seen as just “putting lipstick on the pig” of the underlying issue of continuing unacceptable noise pollution,” the group said in a statement.
Roth dismissed the idea that the Ford Amphitheater’s noise complaints have soured other communities on bringing in VENU projects. Oklahoma City voted down a Sunset Amphitheater proposal last April, with public comment expressing concern over increased traffic and noise pollution, though this was months before Ford Amphitheater’s opening. At the time VENU said it would explore alternative sites for an amphitheater.
In the meantime, the company’s website still lists a Sunset project in Oklahoma City as “coming soon.”
And Roth insists a Sunset Amphitheatre could be coming soon to a town near you.
