A Taste of Colorado, Denver’s 36-year-old food festival held at Civic Center park, could have skidded off the map last year after it pulled an unexpected, 180-degree turn.
“We needed a revamp, and it’s really important for a community-focused festival like that to refresh itself,” said Kaylin Klaren, public events manager with the Downtown Denver Partnership, the producer of A Taste of Colorado. “We took the traditional model, which we had all seen for so long, and really flipped it around.”
That was no small turn, given that Taste has typically attracted an estimated 500,000 people over its four-day, Labor Day weekend run, according to organizers. And if it crashed, it could mean losing an important piece of Denver’s cultural identity, given that its historical inspiration stretches back to 1895 (when it was called the Festival of Mountain and Plain).
But rebuilding the festival from a free, one-size-fits-all event to a more streamlined offering — in this case, by shedding a day and revving up the live-music draw with national acts such as LeeAnn Rimes, Smash Mouth and REO Speedwagon — propelled Taste further than it expected.
“Last year was a huge success for us,” said Klaren. “We did the same amount of business and saw the same amount of people in three days as we did in four, which meant less up-front costs in terms of staffing, hours, load-in and load-out. We also had less of an impact on the city in terms of shutting down streets.”
While Klaren declined to share the festival’s budget or revenue, it’s easy to believe that a revamp helped A Taste of Colorado’s fortunes. Not only did vendors and attendees return in the same numbers, but USA Today nominated A Taste of Colorado this week as one of top 10 best food festivals. Online voting for the winners continues through March 11 and, as of press time, A Taste of Colorado was ranked No. 3 among all North American food festivals — four spots ahead of Aspen’s star-studded Food & Wine Classic, which was No. 7.
“It’s been interesting watching what all these other festivals are doing, and it really validates all the reasons why A Taste of Colorado made the changes we did last year,” Klaren said.
What the other festivals are doing — including the upstart Grandoozy and Velorama festivals, and the early 50-year-old People’s Fair — is pulling out of the city. The three major, mainstream events will not have a presence in Denver for 2019, and there’s no guarantee any of them will come back in 2020, even with Grandoozy and the People’s Fair stated intentions of doing so.
Produced by Superfly, which puts on the Bonnaroo and Outside Lands music festivals, Grandoozy drew an estimated 55,000 people to Overland Park Golf Course last year for what many attendees thought was a slick, national-quality music gathering, with electric performances from Kendrick Lamar, Florence + the Machine, Stevie Wonder and many more. But the cancellation of Grandoozy’s counterpart in Phoenix — Lost Lake, also produced by Superfly — was not a good sign, especially since Lost Lake had already announced several acts for its second year.
In January, Superfly announced Grandoozy would not return to Denver in 2019.
Velorama, which combined the Colorado Classic cycling race and performances from bands such as Modest Mouse, Wilco and Cold War Kids, attracted tens of thousands and took over large swaths of the trendy River North neighborhood in its two-year run. But like music-specific festivals, combining a otoriously difficult-to-monetize cycling race with other logistical issues (long lines, complaints of shortages) likely played a role in organizers pulling back to focus solely on the bike race.
“By pivoting the Colorado Classic to become a women’s standalone pro bicycle race, we can fulfill that mission without the need for Velorama,” producer RPM Events Group said in written statement last month.
The People’s Fair — a free, community-focused event put on by the nonprofit Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN) for more than four decades — had in 2017 revamped its format with a new production company (Denver-based Team Player) and other changes that organizers hoped would stabilize the financially spiraling festival.
They did not, so CHUN pulled the plug on the 2019 version last week.
So what went wrong?
“There are very different reasons for why these events are taking a hiatus in 2019, and I don’t think it represents a trend,” said Jill Thiare, communications and outreach specialist with the city’s Office of Special Events. “Our office was formed in 2014 due to a significant increase in the number of requests (for events), and we haven’t seen a huge increase or decrease since that time.”
Thiare, whose office worked with all of the aforementioned events, coordinates with festivals on locations, permitting, public safety, street closures and other concerns. She said requests for events on public property in Denver last year numbered about 700 — the same as in years past. The office does not track the annual number of public events on private property.
“If People’s Fair wants to come back in 2020, they may or may not be first in line to get the park on that weekend,” Thiare said of the reservation process for Civic Center park, which also hosts large-scale festivals such as PrideFest and Cinco de Mayo. “It’s first-come, first-served.”
Denver’s festival scene is in no danger of going down in flames, despite all the attention the spectacularly failed Fyre Festival (in the Bahamas) has gotten in recent months, said Steven Schmader, president of Boise, Idaho-based International Festivals & Events Association.
“Denver’s been very active in our industry and has stayed on the cutting edge,” he said, noting that the Mile High City won his organization’s World Festival & Event City Award in 2012. “There are niches that are getting hit a little harder for some, like music festivals — which we call the big-box stores of festivals, since they’re a dime a dozen these days and have become vulnerable. But all events need to revisit themselves from time to time, and (Denver) has been working hand-in-hand with its festivals.”
From security fears of lone shooters to finding new revenue streams through digital partnerships, festivals have been forced to adapt or die in recent years. On the other end of the spectrum, the proliferation of neighborhood block parties and other small events — which require little planning or resources, but may still need city permits — has kept some would-be attendees away from big, pricey, generic events, Schamder said.
“It used to be about, ‘How do you build a more creative parade float?’ And now we’re having conversations about, ‘How do you keep your audiences alive?’ ” Schmader said, referencing increased awareness of mass shootings and terrorist violence at public events. “Festivals also used to be the favored children of cities, and now they’re in competition for tax dollars and attention with other events. I’ve seen some that went from not paying for police to all of a sudden getting a bill for six figures. How do you survive that?”
In the case of the People’s Fair, bad weather at the free outdoor festival, declining revenues, declining attendance and other factors combined to push the it out of CHUN’s hands for the first time since it was founded in 1972. Organizers have also cited the proliferation of entertainment options in Denver’s rapidly growing urban core.
“In 2016, we were closing in the red every year for roughly five years,” said CHUN president Travis Leiker. “It became a liability because we recognized we were operating at a loss, and 80 percent of our revenue came from (The People’s Fair). So that’s why we transferred responsibility of the production to Team Player.”
However, CHUN and Team Player dissolved their partnership prior to this year’s event, Leiker said, and since CHUN can’t put the festival on by itself, it’s on hiatus for 2019. (Team Player did not respond to requests for comment.)
“The challenge, of course, is the sustainability piece, the profitability piece and the capacity for human capital at these organizations,” Leiker said of his nonprofit, which holds forums with elected officials and advocates for residents in Capitol Hill. “We’ve been in the black the past couple years, and we’re seeing historic increases in membership-based revenue.”
That’s good for CHUN, but Leiker isn’t sure if the People’s Fair will return in 2020. If it does, he’s considering moving it out of Civic Center park, among other options, to scale it down to a more manageable size.
“The People’s Fair started in a school parking lot at East High,” he said. “Is that something we should be looking at going forward? I think it is, and other festivals are certainly doing the same thing.”
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