When Riley Cash, 31, of Denver, received his second vaccine shot earlier this month, the next big event on his agenda was a concert at nearby Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre.
The outdoor venue reopened this month with limited capacity and four nights of shows from a band named Lotus.
The fact that concerts were already coming back was a surprise, Cash said. But after a year of working from home, he was eager to go see one of his favorite acts live.
The tickets cost about $91 per person, more than Cash was expecting. But he said he considers himself and his friend lucky for being able to get tickets within a couple of days after they went on sale.
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“I just want to go and do something,” he said.
Some smaller and outdoor concert venues are starting to open up and offer limited capacity shows with the hopes of finding attendees who feel the same.
Anecdotally, those venues say they are having an easy time filling the seats they are able to offer.
“We haven’t had a single show that we have put on sale that hasn’t blown out right away,” said spokesman Brian Kitts at Red Rocks, which is located near Morrison, Colorado.
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The outdoor yoga series that Red Rocks offers has also sold out quickly, he said.
While it still feels like a long way from other indoor forms of entertainment like opera and ballet being able to reopen, the initial sales of the available events have shown a stronger start than anticipated, Kitts said.
That’s a big deal for the city owned venue, which lost about $52 million last year.
“Nobody saw this coming,” Kitts said.
“On any given night, we’ve got 400 people working in the venue, and all of those jobs were gone just overnight,” he said.
As the show season starts, ticket prices have generally not gone up, to the credit of the bands and promoters, Kitts said.
But new Covid-19 protocols are in place.
There are no temperature checks at the door, nor requirements to show proof of vaccine or a negative Covid-19 test.
But other precautions have been created. There is six feet of space between groups of ticket holders, who now only occupy every other row. Masks are required in indoor spaces, such as bathrooms or the visitor’s center.
The venue has also implemented touchless payment systems for all transactions.
