Aspen’s cultural scene tests ‘theory of abundance’

Between Aspen and Snowmass Village, there is a festival for almost everything: Food, wine, food and wine, beer and spirits. Classical music, jazz, pop, DJs. Film, from shorts to features. Visual and performing arts in almost every form imaginable.

There are festivals for hot air balloons, for rugby, for books and for cultural heritage. And — of course — Aspen has a festival for “Ideas.”

Some of these overlap and even compete on the same calendar that includes hundreds of other lectures, tours, concerts, performances and athletic events, many of them stacking up in summer months. The sheer number of events is “mindboggling,” said Cristal Logan, vice president of Aspen community programs and engagement for the Aspen Institute — so much so that “it would be overwhelming to put it all together.”

Plus, there are new ones all the time. This weekend alone marks the debut of the Up in the Sky music festival at Buttermilk and a new iteration of Aspen Fashion Week.

“Art Week,” in late July, involved not only the long-running Intersect Aspen Art + Design Fair, but also the second-ever Aspen Art Fair and expanded programming from the Aspen Art Museum — a new AIR (Art in Relation) festival that claimed to revive the spirit of the International Design Conference in Aspen. The inaugural Aspen Design Conference later this month states the same goal. 

Later this season comes the first-ever Aspen Literary Festival, hosted by Aspen Words; a new Oktoberfest in Snowmass Village; and other relative newcomers such as the fourth annual Raizado Festival and fifth annual Festival Del Rancho. All that is just a sampling of the recent arrivals, and doesn’t even begin to capture all the long-running events that have shaped the summer season for decades. 

“I feel so blessed that in this little speck on the map … we get to [have] these world-class arts and culture opportunities,” said Aspen Councilman Bill Guth. “I really can’t think of many other places in the world that have even a fraction of the opportunities and the talent of the caliber that we have here, and that we attract here.” 

Among the few things Aspen doesn’t have is a Nothing Festival, like Telluride’s, conceived by locals there in the 1990s as a midsummer reprieve from — and protest against — all the large-scale gatherings that pack the town. 

Pitkin County Commissioner Greg Poschman thinks that “maybe that’s something worth pursuing.” 

“It’s really about shaping the community we want to have, in the face of very strong growth pressure, continuous growth pressure, whether it’s in arts events or whether it’s in housing or construction projects,” he said. 

Guth thinks about shaping the community, too: He is “supportive of more cultural events,” he said, but “that doesn’t mean it’s at all costs.” 

“I think it’s critical that we present what’s really important to us as a community,” Guth said. “I don’t think that it would be pleasant if every single park was filled with some semiprivatized use every single weekend. … There has to be a balance there.”

Balance but not total restriction, Guth added: “We have to embrace change and new opportunities to experience art and culture for today.” 

“I don’t know that anyone could ever quantify in a reasonable way what the maximum limit of events is,” he said later. “And I don’t think we want to become a place that’s discouraging of new and interesting events.” 

So, is there even such a thing as “too much”? 

According to Poschman, people have been asking that question “since the 1950s.”

Cultural boom

It was about that time that Aspen entered its cultural renaissance, led by Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke and their vision for a utopia that would nourish the mind, body and spirit. 

That vision first manifested in the 1949 Goethe Bicentennial Convocation and Music Festival, a big bang that led to the founding of the Aspen Institute, the Aspen Music Festival and School, the International Design Conference, and a number of other powerhouses over the next two decades. Alongside Aspen’s access to nature and recreation, culture became part of the attraction for residents and visitors alike. 

The creatives of the 1960s and ’70s continued that momentum with institutions such as Aspen Film, the Aspen Art Museum and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village. The 1980s brought forth the bacchanale of the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen, an early version of Theatre Aspen and a “grand reopening” of the Wheeler Opera House that had been around nearly a century. 

By this point, Aspen’s schedule of events was so full to bursting that some were saying “too much,” said Aspen Writers Conference leader Ruth Ganz in an interview with then-Aspen TImes journalist Paul Andersen in 1985. (The conference was a predecessor to the literary nonprofit Aspen Words, which is now under the Aspen Institute umbrella.) 

“Ganz explained that Aspen has too rich a cultural diet. … People simply cannot make time to enjoy it all,” Andersen reported. 

And yet, the courses kept coming. The 1990s brought Jazz Aspen Snowmass, with its June and Labor Day music festivals, as well as the Red Brick Center for the Arts and a precursor to the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, among others. 

The 2000s and 2010s were marked by both comings and goings: the end of the International Design Conference but the arrival of the Ideas Festival; the closure of the Double Diamond Club and the opening of the Belly Up in its place. HBO stopped producing its Comedy Arts Festival here; the Wheeler Opera House responded with a stand-up showcase of its own. 

One door closes, another opens in the present decade, too: When the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet shut down its locally based performing company in 2021, the artists formed a new nonprofit, Dance Aspen, to carry on. 

In the 15 years or so, even with the total disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, Aspen and Snowmass have welcomed new venues, new festivals, new organizations, new fairs and gatherings — not to mention the bounty in creative communities downvalley that long produced their own celebrated events. 

Among the upstarts and grand debuts, some have stuck and some have gone bust; even major organizations have grappled with challenges that range from irreplaceable staff to housing shortages to a glut of other music festivals. But that hasn’t stopped the inflow of ideas for the next big thing. 

“There’s always a new, enthusiastic, bushy-tailed group who come here to be entertained. … You’ve arrived at a banquet. You want to try everything,” Poschman said. 

A number of community members interviewed for this story said this cultural scene, while saturated, has not reached its maximum yet — that there may still be untapped markets and that there is still room for more, within reason. They see the abundance as a benefit to the consumer, to the community and to humanity at large. 

Yet, they also recognize that Aspen’s cultural scene could be viewed, at least by some, as an embarrassment of riches. The Goethe Bicentennial “was burned into our cultural memory and our identity,” Poschman said, adding that it was part of the collective experience. “Does that still happen when there’s so much happening here?”

This proliferation of events has also led to more competition for a limited supply of talent, accommodations, labor and, in some cases, audiences. 

When the Aspen Art Fair arrived on the scene last summer — on the very same week as, and a half-mile from, the long-standing Intersect Aspen Art + Design Fair — the leaders of both suggested there was plenty of room for two. In one leader’s words, the “sky’s the limit,” and in another’s words, “art always seems to find a home here.”

But a few months later, when Belly Up proposed major music festivals occurring on two different summer weekends at Buttermilk — with acts similar to those of the existing JAS Labor Day Experience and crowds of up to 16,000 people — the idea prompted such uproar from other cultural leaders about impact and community capacity that the Belly Up scaled back to just one weekend. 

It was a flashpoint, and temperatures have cooled since. Some of those same cultural leaders emphasized in interviews that they aren’t against competition or new events altogether; mostly, they want to make sure there is communication and consideration of potential conflicts in the event review process. 

There’s an extent to which “we’ll all manage our seasons and we’ll figure it out,” said Jim Horowitz, founder, president and CEO of Jazz Aspen Snowmass, speaking broadly about the cultural scene. Still, the challenge of finite resources remains. 

“Too much art, too much performing arts, is not a bad problem,” Horowitz said. “But it is maybe one of ours.”

‘The new reality’ 

There’s an extent to which this community’s arts and culture ecosystem is “like a well-functioning biosphere that takes care of itself,” said Alan Fletcher, president and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School.

He claims the organization produces “as many unique orchestra programs in eight weeks as the New York Philharmonic does in a year.” (By some counts, they do even more programming, promoting 400-plus concerts and events in their summer season; the New York Phil advertises more than 100 a year.)

Local arts leaders meet on a regular basis and compare calendars to make sure that major events don’t conflict. There’s a general understanding that organizations won’t host their annual galas or biggest performances of the season on the same nights, lest arts-loving patrons be forced to choose one paddle-raise over another, Fletcher said. 

They may very well propose complementary programs to the marquee events, or partner on a copresented show. But there is also, inevitably, some overlap. And, in turn, some competition for audiences. 

“It’s not a secret that some of my board members have been worried about attendance falling off,” Fletcher said, at least in some of the festival and school’s offerings. 

The Aspen Festival Orchestra concerts on Sunday afternoons? Still plenty robust — there’s an understanding that 4 p.m. on Sundays “are sort of ‘our time,’” Fletcher said. But the Friday evening shows featuring the Aspen Chamber Symphony? 

“It’s not terrible, it’s just noticeably less than it used to be,” Fletcher said. “And one thing I observe is, 25 years ago, there was practically nothing else happening on a Friday night, and now there’s a ton of great stuff happening, and that’s natural. … This is the new reality.” 

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Fletcher said. 

“The limited number of people who can feasibly live here or be a tourist here, they’re going to make a finite number of choices,” he said. “And I think it’s better for the overall economy to have many choices, so I don’t mind if we are not the only thing in town anymore, because that’s good for town.” 

‘We want more of this’

“In a perfect world, there would never be empty seats,” or at least not a lot of them, said Horowitz, of Jazz Aspen Snowmass. Empty seats could be one indicator this town has exceeded its actual, cultural capacity. 

And if that were the case, “you [would] see organizations start to pare back their seasons,” Horowitz said. Overall, “I think you would just see less.”

But “the major organizations here — I believe everyone has found, to a certain extent, enough core constituents that they’ll keep going.” 

The greater challenge, for a number of institutions, is the availability of resources to produce events. 

Horowitz said the explosion of events in Aspen has made it harder to find available spaces for the JAS Cafe Series, so much so that the nonprofit has had to pare down the lineup to about 12 to 16 nights per year, compared with more than 30 a decade ago.

So, a new, permanent venue called the Paul JAS Center “can’t come too soon,” Horowitz said. It’s under construction above the historic Red Onion that once hosted jazz greats such as Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. 

Horowitz knows it won’t be the only show in town — Theatre Aspen is thinking about a year-round permanent venue, the Wheeler “seems intent on booking more shows” and “the Belly Up is not going away.” 

Wheeler Executive Director Mike Harrington said in an interview that the venue is now aiming for 225 to 250 days of activity per year, including Wheeler-presented events, venue rentals and community activities, but “if we’re able to build the staff, I think there’s no reason this venue couldn’t be active 300 days a year,” on par with numbers from 2018. 

“I think as a community asset, it’s our responsibility to drive towards that,” Harrington said. The venue is owned by the city of Aspen and supported with money from a real estate transfer tax. 

Meanwhile, Belly Up, which is owned by Michael, David and Danny Goldberg, already averages 200 to 250 concerts per year, Michael told Pitkin County commissioners at a meeting last fall. The Belly Up team also collaborates with local municipalities on free outdoor concerts and now produces two major ticketed music festivals — the winter Palm Tree Festival in Rio Grande Park and the summer Up in the Sky Festival at Buttermilk. The Goldbergs are also involved in the businesses above the concert venue: a Nobu Matsuhisa restaurant, Yuki Aspen, and a private club called Am7, which opened this summer.

Aspen Journalism reached out to Erin Heintz, Belly Up’s vice president of events and strategic development, several times this past spring and summer requesting to speak with her and the Goldbergs, but they were not made available for an interview. According to an email from Heintz, preparations for the restaurant, private club and Up in the Sky festival mean “minutes are hard to come by right now.”

Yet, Horowitz feels confident about his bet on a permanent venue for Jazz Aspen Snowmass, which will offer not only a stage for performers but a recording studio, bar, education space and the opportunity for other groups to gather. 

When the organization’s leaders started to envision the space, they wondered: “Do we really, actually need this, or is 20 nights a year actually … all there really is?” Horowitz said. “No. The feedback, of course, [that] we got from our audience is: ‘No, we wish there was more of this, and we wish it was consistent.’” 

And perhaps, Horowitz hopes, venues like this will make the arts an even bigger draw for Aspen visitors. 

“Then, 10 years from now, we’ll be sitting out here having a cup of coffee, like, ‘Can you believe [it]? Everybody [at every venue] is full all the time — all the time,’” Horowitz said. 

Supply and demand 

Of course, a venue isn’t the only necessary ingredient. Aspen and Snowmass Village have a finite number of flat parks, stages and ballrooms to fill — but also a finite number of event tents, accommodations, security personnel, traffic control crews and sound engineers. 

The average daily rate for an Aspen hotel room in July rose nearly 70% between 2014 and 2024, even after adjusting for inflation, but hotels were still about as full as they were 10 years ago, according to that month’s reports generated by hotel occupancy tracker Destimetrics. And that translates to real costs for cultural institutions trying to house a guest artist or visiting speaker or extra personnel for the weekend.

Some event organizers say they’re also feeling the pinch on infrastructure and labor. In some cases, competition comes from not only other public festivals and convenings but elaborate weddings and private parties. And even larger economic forces are impacting the supply. 

The cost of housing in the Roaring Fork Valley, already high before COVID, shot up even more in the postpandemic boom, exacerbating the challenges of hiring full-time staff. 

That pandemic, which put a stop to nearly every kind of gathering in 2020, also prompted some people working in event production to pursue a different career, according to Michael Burns, cofounder and managing partner of Carbondale-based audio, visual and live-event company Six Productions. 

“We lost an enormous amount of people,” Burns said. “Add the housing crisis to it, and it’s been very difficult to recover getting people back in here. … We’re in a spot where we are now having to pull more people [from] out of town than we’ve ever had to pull [for events].” 

That increases the cost for Six Productions and, in turn, for their clients, which range from the Food and Wine Classic and the Aspen Institute to weddings and conferences. 

“I think there will be a tipping point,” Burns said. 

That’s supply and demand at work: Even his company has started to consider business in other cities such as Denver, Las Vegas and Austin, Texas, “because it’s a lot easier to find people and stuff and bigger shows out there than it is here.” 

“At some point, Aspen may not be as attractive,” Burns said. “And I think that’s true of almost every festival that comes through here.”

Theory of abundance

By most accounts, though, that point hasn’t arrived yet. 

Event organizers have adapted to take some pressure off, as the Aspen Chamber Resort Association did when they moved Wintersköl from jam-packed January to quieter December last year in response to community capacity. 

Some organizers also have adjusted their priorities, although that doesn’t always change the number of events. ACRA stepped away from coproducing the Downtown Aspen Arts Festival because they determined that the third weekend in July “just did not need more,” according to Eliza Voss, ACRA vice president of destination marketing. The festival, organized by Howard Alan Events, is still happening, though — and even expanded to three days from two. 

There are limits on volume, too, at least to some extent. The city of Aspen already sets blackout dates on new events in parks and city-owned facilities from mid-June to the first week of August “due to existing heavy use,” historic events and already-high occupancy in town, according to the city’s special events website. Practically speaking, all of these happenings can put a strain on infrastructure, traffic and local workers, even as they meet requirements to mitigate their impacts. 

“You’re never going to satisfy everybody,” said Sam Lovstad, the city’s special events permit coordinator. “People are going to think we have too many events. People are going to think that we don’t have enough events, or they want different events, or [that] ‘these events don’t suit my interests or my lifestyle or my family,’ or ‘these events are impactful.’”

Events produced by the city, including the Art Cart Alpine Rally and Mactoberfest, a macaroni-and-cheese festival, aim to foster community, quality of life and a sense of belonging rather than putting “heads in beds,” said special events assistant manager Wesy Armour-Cook.