Aspen arts and cultural leaders express concern over large, summer music concert event

Several prominent leaders of Aspen’s arts and cultural organizers sent an Oct. 4 letter to Pitkin County commissioners urging them to reconsider allowing a large summer music concert series at Buttermilk Ski Area.

Pitkin County commissioners on Sept. 25 unanimously passed a preliminary approval for the Belly Up at Buttermilk concert series, which is now in the hands of county land use staff, and the sheriff’s office to finalize approval.

County Commissioner Chair Greg Poschman said that permits normally come from administrative approval.

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“When an event gets big enough, our development communications director brings the permits in front of the board, and wisely so,” he said. “If this permit was for 200 people or 1,000 people, this probably would not have come to the board.”

The new concert series, produced by Belly Up at Buttermilk, is to be held either in mid-July or mid-August (peak summer season) next year, with 16,000 tickets expected to be sold. The timing and size of the event are listed as the main reasons in the letter due to potential conflicts with long-established local events.

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Alan Fletcher of the Aspen Music Festival and School, Jim Horowitz of Jazz Aspen Snowmass, Cristal Logan of the Aspen Institute, Nicola Lees of the Aspen Art Museum, and other key figures signed the letter outlining their worries. 

“Any consideration of the idea and wisdom of presenting new summer concerts in peak season at Buttermilk is properly in the hands of the Pitkin County commissioners and, ultimately, the public and its many local constituents,” Horowitz said.  

Horowitz said JAS does not have an issue with adding the new concerts but touched on the style of music, and time of season.

“The genre(s) of music presented are fundamentally different from JAS, and these proposed concerts take place on annual and consistent, fixed dates, consistent with all major local events, and preferably in mid-July v. mid-August, as to allow the entire community to plan accordingly in tandem with the full summer events calendar,” he said.

Horowitz said that other members of the Aspen arts and cultural organizations are saying the same thing. He said that JAS was offered an opportunity to move its venue to Buttermilk in fall 2021, which JAS declined.

“Aspen SkiCo offered JAS the opportunity to relocate its 30-year-running Labor Day weekend Experience, from its longtime home in Snowmass Town Park since 1996 to Buttermilk,” he said. “After a thorough internal analysis, we concluded there was far too much risk to JAS in making such a change after decades in Snowmass, and we walked away from the opportunity in September of 2022.” 

He said that JAS never discussed, either internally or with SkiCo, “the idea of moving our dates (or presenting another festival) to peak season, mid-summer. JAS only discussed changing our venue to Buttermilk on Labor Day weekend.”  

Aspen’s arts and cultural groups argue that the Aspen summer economy relies on carefully coordinated events hosted by nonprofit organizations, which have successfully balanced their scheduling to avoid competition for audiences, talent, and sponsors. 

The letter urges officials to allow more community input and to reconsider the approval process for such large events, emphasizing the need for transparency and collaboration to ensure that new events do not undermine the success of Aspen’s cultural institutions.

Poschman said that this event was big enough and consequential enough, and that he was disappointed with the board for not contemplating this more.

“If we spent a little more time contemplating this, it would have been better,” he said. “I got the sense that the community did not know what we were signing off on.”

In the letter, respondents state that this coordination is crucial because summer in Aspen is prime time for the town’s cultural calendar, featuring major events like Food & Wine, the Aspen Ideas Festival, ArtCrush, and the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Festival.

This uncertainty, they argue, creates the potential for the pending, for-profit concert series to be in direct competition with existing, local nonprofit events, both for audiences and financial resources. 

Poschman said he was under the impression that they were approving further examination of the permit.

“I was taken up by surprise because I thought we were voting to approve further examination. There are so many huge question marks about how this will be pulled off,” he said. “I do not want to kill it, because I am not ready for that, but I wanted the Belly Up group to come back in February for a report.”

Poschman said that the applicants will still provide a report in February, but he thinks that will now be too late for the community to learn more. 

“We need to think about the community impacts and impacts on the highway,” he said. “I think this needs more scrutiny from the community, and I hope I am not the only one on the board who feels this way.”

County Commissioner Vice Chair Steve Child did not respond to request for comments for this story.

Petitioners of the letter will be in attendance at Wednesday’s Oct. 9 Pitkin County Commission meeting and other concerned citizens are welcome to attend the public meeting. The meeting begins at noon and will be held at the BOCC Meeting Room, first floor, 530 E. Main St.