DENVER — Just before COVID-19 shut down businesses across Colorado, the state's music industry was a rip-roaring, $1.4 billion success story supporting some 16,000 jobs, and Denver was celebrating its status as a "global music city." By July of 2020, just four months into mandated shutdowns and stay-at-home orders, the industry had lost an estimated $344.7 million — $213.8 million in Denver alone — and shed about half of those jobs.
But now, as the economy shows signs of life and restaurants welcome customers back for indoor dining, the music industry is reflecting that same optimism. Red Rocks is hosting concerts and two big summer music festivals that drive economic activity in two of Denver's most lively districts have announced they're back in 2021: Underground Music Showcase in the Baker neighborhood and Denver Day of Rock on the 16th Street Mall.
"The thing you have to remember is the Denver region’s music industry was thriving before Covid happened," Michael Seman, assistant professor at Colorado State University's LEAP Institute for the Arts' arts management program, told Denver Business Journal. "It was not faltering. It was growing at a rapid clip. It was one of the fastest-growing industries in the region."
Seman was an author of Denver Arts & Venues' 2018 "Denver Music Strategy," a document that analyzed the state's music industry and estimated its economic impact and employment, and was designed to "further amplify Denver as a global music city." That report estimated that the Denver region's live-music sector generated $328.1 million in revenue in 2018. He also prepared the July 2020 report commissioned by Denver and the state that gauged the fallout from the Covid-19 crisis.
> Video above: Live musical theater returns to Town Hall Arts Center.
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