TELLURIDE — In a last-minute development for a town where the summer calendar is packed with festivals, the town council approved a major new two-night concert for late August.
The proposal was brought forward by Planet Bluegrass, the Lyons-based company behind the long-running and beloved Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Despite the town’s reputation for hosting major cultural and music events, news of the concert has been unwelcome in some corners of this remote community.
The concerts are set for Aug. 22-23 in Town Park, the same weekend as the Telluride Mountain Run, which has since 2019 run from the park. At a town council meeting Feb. 25, when the concert received final approval, the run’s organizer, Jared Vilhauer, said sharing the weekend and the space with large crowds “would make it impossible to produce the race which has made our event popular.”
Despite Vilhauer’s concerns, the council approved the concert in a 4-1 vote. In doing so, they granted an exception to the town’s May 2024 deadline to apply for 2025 events.
Planet Bluegrass announced their intentions in December.
Zach Tucker, vice president of Planet Bluegrass, said they see the event — billed as “The Two Night Concert in Town Park” until a headliner is signed — as a chance to bring “different bands, a different genre and branch out from what we currently offer … in Telluride.” Planet Bluegrass produced a series of concerts in Town Park in late August 2015 and 2016 featuring the Colorado-based electronic dance music band Pretty Lights.
The company is approved to sell nearly 8,000 tickets per night.
Telluride Mountain Run has developed a devoted following since the current race organizers took over in 2017, growing to 450 participants from 75. It offers three courses ranging from 13 to 40 miles, traversing terrain that has long been sacred to hikers, visitors and residents of the San Juan Mountains. Racers climb through Bear Creek, cross Wasatch Pass and the Sneffels Highline Trail. They descend through the abandoned Tomboy Mine Camp and run out along the town’s iconic Valley Floor.
According to three-time Telluride Mountain Run athlete and Telluride-based runner Isabella Poulos, “it’s not even really a race. It’s like this mountain experience.” And people show up for it, she says. “You get to see all your friends out there. It highlights why I live here and the community dynamic I feel is so important to Telluride.”
Like many runners, Poulos said she was “disappointed” by news that the race would be sharing Telluride’s limited tourist infrastructure — from its streets, to its lodging, to its beloved Town Park along the tree-lined banks of the San Miguel River — with thousands of concert attendees.
Vilhauer, who organizes the race with his business partner Fischer Hazen, told The Colorado Sun “we’ve always imagined ourselves as an alternative to those large, corporate, festival-type events which have become quite popular.”
As Vilhauer voiced his concerns over the proposal, members of the local running community followed suit, taking to group chats and newspaper op-eds. Many sent letters to the council asking their representatives to turn down the concert proposal and protect the run’s claim on a rare weekend — wedged between the town’s jazz festival and its film festival — when camping, parking and finding a quick bite to eat are uncharacteristically easy.
Conversation expanded beyond the runners. One letter submitted to council, signed by over a dozen residents and business leaders, said adding another large event “would overwhelm our town’s infrastructure.” Drafted, in part, by the owner of a hotel at the base of the gondola in Telluride, the letter recognized potential economic gains. But, it asked the council to think long term and “cultivate new, sustainable approaches to tourism that minimize negative consequences for locals and the environment.”
A new source of angst for a fest-stressed community
Concerts have long been a source of stress for some Telluride residents, to the point that the town council asked festivals in 2020 to submit sound-management plans. Sound impacts in the dense neighborhoods surrounding Town Park were reportedly an issue following the Pretty Lights shows. The town’s contract with Planet Bluegrass requires the organization to minimize noise levels outside the park during the August event.
Fatigue with tourism has become a frequent phenomenon in Colorado’s mountain towns, and Telluride is no exception. It was only a few years ago that COVID sent a rush of tourism and real estate money to remote, recreation-oriented escapes.
In response, the Telluride town council took dramatic steps to curb traffic, capping short-term-rental licenses, pulling funding from the local tourism board and ending destination marketing campaigns.
More recently, the mood has been shifting, at least in terms of policy. Over the past year and a half, the council has allowed the STR cap to expire and resumed funding for domestic and international marketing for Telluride.
The economic impact promised by the concert was a major selling point. Planet Bluegrass touted an estimate, calculated by the Tourism Board, that the event would bring $6.4 million of additional economic activity to town. Between venue rentals and sales tax bumps, $70,000 is predicted to head directly to town government.
In her vote in favor of the event, councilmember Meehan Fee, who works as an event producer, cited the potential benefit to working class residents.
“Right now,” she said, “the greatest good is that the people who are living and working here will get one more week of predictable revenue to take them through the offseason.”
Speaking at her cafe, The Butcher and The Baker, which sees lines stretching down the block during summer festivals, Megan Ossola welcomed the prospect of the new event.
“It’s those big weekends, those big bumps — the Bluegrass Festival, the Fourth of July — that get me ahead for the shoulder season,” Ossola said.
She sympathized with the views of her neighbors.
“It makes sense that locals gripe: ‘Oh it’s the end of the season, and we’re adding another concert?’” Ossola said. “But I just think ‘Oh, great! Maybe I can give a better bonus at the end of the year. Maybe I can throw a holiday party for my staff.’”
But views within the business community are mixed. At Counter Culture, a lunch spot just outside of town in Lawson Hill, Steve Hertzfeld was more skeptical. Hertzfeld, who co-owns the cafe with two other locals, worries how the new event will impact the race.
It is unfair to ask race organizers, with their event already selling out, to change logistics, he said. And, while Hertzfeld welcomed the possibility of new visitors, he was unsure about the overall economic impact.
“A headliner who is going to be here for two days this one summer — just to me — it doesn’t promote a sustainable economy,” he said. Hertzfeld was more interested in seeing Telluride develop its recreation economy.
“That’s less boom and bust,” he added.
Only one member of council voted against the concert. The town’s Parks and Recreation Commission voted unanimously in support. Telluride Mayor Teddy Errico supported the approval, as well.
In an interview with The Sun, Errico pointed to many factors beyond the economic impact, from cultural enrichment to Planet Bluegrass’ successful track record working with town staff and residents.
When it came to the conflict between Telluride residents craving a recreation-oriented mountain life and those in favor of the larger payouts brought by big crowds and corporate backings, he said the sides are interrelated.
“As we deal with the impacts of COVID and grow into the resort promised by our forefathers in the ’80s, it’s becoming harder to protect what (the mountain) lifestyle is,” he said. One concession for maintaining Telluride’s tourist economy could be asking smaller events to coexist with larger crowds and higher dollars.
“I do wax poetic about the quiet weekends,” he said, “but those days are over.”
After the approval for the Aug. 22-23 concerts, Vilhauer and Hazen sent letters to registered runners re-setting expectations for race day. Vilhauer said they’ve given refunds to a few runners who expressed concerns and pulled out. But for the most part feedback has been supportive, with folks promising to show up and race.
Meanwhile, the Mountain Run is working with Telluride staff and Planet Bluegrass to craft a plan for splitting up space in the park, dividing camping areas and ensuring both events can take place simultaneously. Runners have also been offered a 50% discount on concert tickets, once they go on sale. It remains unclear if Planet Bluegrass will try to repeat its August concert in coming summers, but Tucker did not rule it out.
Poulos still plans to run the race — and is looking forward to it and the community it creates.
“Even if they’re not racing,” she said, people are “out hiking on the course, cheering someone on, way up in Marshall Basin. … Maybe they hiked up at 3 a.m. just to watch 50 people run through that they know.
“I think it’s important we keep this race alive.”