After losing UMS to RiNo, South Broadway will host a music festival on the same weekend

Denver’s music fans will have their choice of two music festivals on the same weekend this summer.

There’s the Underground Music Showcase. As usual, the long-running event will be held on a late-July weekend — although this year it’s making a controversial move from South Broadway to the River North district in Five Points.

Then there’s Blucifer’s First Rodeo — a new artist-run event on the same strip of South Broadway that had hosted UMS for decades before its departure.

Both events will be held on the weekend of July 24. Blucifer’s First Rodeo will take over many of the same venues that UMS once occupied and include many of the same bands that played the legacy festival.

But organizers of the new event say they’re not trying to compete with or spite UMS, despite some hard feelings on South Broadway about the older festival’s departure.

“We're not a counter UMS festival,” said Blucifer’s First Rodeo organizer Mike Young, who plays in the band Clementine Was Right. “We’re absolutely not that in any way.”

Blucifer’s First Rodeo has a different ethos than UMS.

“Our slogan we've been running with is ‘By artists, for everybody,’ and I think that's really, really shaping up to be true,” said fellow organizer Gillian Pasley, singer and guitarist of Caspar Milquetoast.

The artists behind the festival began organizing it shortly after UMS announced last month it would move to Five Points. The changes to UMS had frustrated locals and venue owners.

“I will tell you at its core what has (made) me annoyed today or angry perhaps, is being lied to over and over and over and over again by the people who own and operate UMS, being told we are not moving this to another part of the city,” HQ owner Scott Happel told Denverite.

Even politicians weighed in.

“This used to be a more community-based underground type of music showcase, and that has been watered down over the years,” Denver City Councilmember Flor Alvidrez said.

But the musicians behind Blucifer’s First Rodeo viewed the departure of UMS as a chance to build something new.

“With an opportunity arising for a festival on the street that we know and love and play on all the time, it just kind of felt like a no-brainer,” Pasley said. “And the enthusiasm from our community has been really overwhelming and outstanding, both from the business owners on Broadway, local musicians, folks who love to go to shows.”

They chose for their festival to overlap with UMS, even if that means competing for ears.

It’s part of a post-pandemic renaissance for Denver’s DIY music scene happening on porches and in living rooms, backyards and basements citywide — even in a downtown office tower, as Denverite recently reported.

And South Broadway venues, long resistant to AEG and Live Nation’s monopolization of Denver’s music venues, have embraced the new festival’s grassroots approach.

The festival plans to book at least 80 artists, pay them well and create a summer holiday for the local music scene. They declined to say how much they’ll pay artists on record. Four-day passes will cost $69.

The organizers have been meeting with business owners, residents, neighborhood groups and even the Denver Police Department.

Word is spreading fast.

Pasley was recently at Office Depot printing out flyers for the festival’s first lineup announcement.

“Oh,” said the guy working the desk. “I’ve heard about this. I’m so excited.”

The festival plans to host at least 80 bands.

The rodeo is showcasing many of the same bands that historically played the legacy festival: Bluebook, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Dressy Bessy and Spells.

They’ll be performing in some of the same venues where UMS happened: HQ, hi-dive, Bar 404 and the Skylark Lounge, along with houses and DIY venues in the Baker neighborhood.

The organizers have announced 30 acts so far, all local bands:2MX2