Why Tequila Blues Festival at Red Rocks Was Canceled Just Days Before the Event

The Tequila Blues Festival was meant to be a grassroots triumph at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Set to take place on Sunday, April 13, the event was a community effort spearheaded by Christine Alonzo, who told us that all the challenges she faced in pulling it together were about to be worth it.

But on April 8, the Red Rocks website said the event was canceled, citing "unforeseen circumstances" and adding that refunds would be provided at the original point of purchase.

"We chose to postpone the show until November or a later date because of poor ticket sales," Alonzo says, noting that only 500 were sold in two months. "The fact that we sold 500 tickets in over two months is really alarming. ... This looming $125,000 number was hanging over our heads that is owed to AXS and Red Rocks, if the show was to move."

While AXS is a ticketing software company that is not in charge of marketing shows and AEG shows do not impact other events, Alonzo says that her festival was being "set up for failure, to be honest with you." However, she still wants it to happen.

"We’ve already been in conversations with all of the artists, and all of the artists, with the exception of the Los Lonely Boys agent, are willing to work with us, whether it’s at Red Rocks in November or another venue," she adds.

She says she is feeling "defeated because there’s this David and Goliath feeling that’s happening. There’s this big corporation that’s dominating the dates. How that process is being done is certainly up for review."

In a statement, Red Rocks spokesperson Brian Kitts notes that "show promotion isn't for the faint of heart and promoters know the risk and reward — both of which increase as the artists and venues get bigger.  There are a million moving parts, but promoters are called promoters for a reason — they accept sole responsibility for selling an event."

Alonzo admits there was "a bit of a learning curve for us figuring out the number that people would pay for an all-day festival. Initially, it was $165, which was the market value for what a festival in any other location, including areas in the mountains west of Denver, is. We tried to stay aligned with those same costs that would be associated to those events. We took a drastic price reduction after about two weeks after the tickets first went on sale," bringing the tickets down to $99, then $79.

"Even at a BOGO [$50] for the last three or four days, we had only moved 28 tickets," she continues. "There was no movement with even that. That is very questionable to us."

Alonzo is still reeling from the last-minute decision she and her team made to postpone the show. "I think that we certainly have to regroup. I think we need to figure out how we move forward because as a new minority- and woman-owned business that’s a huge black eye for us," she says. "I think we need to really reevaluate how we move forward. One key thing that’s going to be really telling is whether or not we get the November date."

Concludes Alonzo: "I’m really pretty emotional right now about how things are going to go moving forward. It’s really a sad and a scary way of how I have to view this. I thought for sure we would be preparing this week to do a show for Sunday, and do a great show for the community, doing a festival that we could do for years to come that could grow. Maybe it was a lofty goal or a pipe dream."

Editor's note: We've reached out to AEG for a response to Alonzo's comments.

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