Red Rocks Announces 2026 Venue Upgrades After Record-Breaking Season

Red Rocks Amphitheatre had another record-breaking year with its 2025 season, and marketing and communications director Brian Kitts is confident that the 2026 season, which marks the venue’s 85th year in operation, will be another hit.

Last year, the venue welcomed more than 1.75 million attendees across 236 events. Billboard ranked Red Rocks as the second-most-attended venue in the U.S. behind Madison Square Garden, and Pollstar Magazine rated it the best-attended amphitheater of 2025.

“I think you can attribute it to all the usual things,” Kitts says of the record-breaking year. “Red Rocks is a very, very special place. It ends up being not just a hometown favorite, but a destination for visitors.”

He notes that upwards of 40 percent of a concert’s audience will be coming to the venue from out of town, according to ticket data. “Red Rocks being in the middle of the country and a good, mid-sized venue helps with those types of sellouts,” he says. “Additionally, there’s a fun mix between genres.”

The upcoming Red Rocks season definitely proves that, with a wide-ranging slate that includes rockers like Yungblud, pop stars like Louis Tomlinson, and oldies favorites like Rod Stewart. This year will include “more Latin shows than we’ve ever had,” Kitts notes, and there will even be cello superstar Yo-Yo Ma performing alongside the Colorado Symphony. “I always get excited by people who have not played at the venue before,” he adds.

And Red Rocks won’t just offer new performers this year; the venue will also be getting two big upgrades. “The first is a terrace at the East stairs, and that will allow for ticket scanning and security scanning for people coming in,” Kitts explains. “I think the really cool thing about that is it was part of the original plans in 1936.”

There will also be a new, permanent merchandise shop that will blend in with the venue’s natural architecture, replacing what Kitts calls the “janky clamshell” of a booth that was “not a great protection from the elements.”

After a period in the early 1900s when the area was known as the Garden of Angels and then the Garden of Titans (during which then-owner John Brisbane Walker wanted to turn it into an amusement park), the venue officially opened as Red Rocks Amphitheatre on June 15, 1941, with a ceremony featuring Native Americans and a chorus singing operatic selections.

The Red Rocks history spans centuries, from Native American ceremonies to WPA work crews to rock-and-roll legends, and there are many more Red Rocks fun facts to learn ahead of the 2026 season, which Kitts believes will be just as historic.

“We are looking at a similar type of record-breaking season in terms of shows,” he says.