The Wasatch Front could have a new music festival venue in the near future if a local committee agrees to create it.
In early July, members of the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority (POMSLA) voted unanimously to approve a conceptual campus application for a music festival of up to 75,000-attendees, though it wouldn’t have that capacity right away.
While the proposal is not a fully done deal — a lease agreement, development agreement and other aspects need to be finalized first — July’s conceptual approval sets the stage for a potential music festival at The Point, the massive redevelopment area at the former state prison site in Draper.
The festival would cover around 30 acres of The Point’s roughly 600 acres, and the festival grounds would be at the southern end of the overall site.
The proposal is a joint venture between The Point Partners (TPP) and Blackwall Ventures, a Salt Lake City-based entertainment and development company that has experience with large festivals. The Point Partners is the development partner for POMSLA, and it consists of the national firm Lincoln Property Company, as well as the Utah-based Colmena Group and Wadsworth Development Group.
If all is approved, the target date for the first music festival is August 2027, according to a slide show presented to the POMSLA board in July.
John Buckner, a partner at Blackwall Ventures, told Building Salt Lake it’s taken years of work to get to this point. Buckner is a musician himself who was the tour manager for the band Neon Trees for two years, and even temporarily played drums for the band at one point. He also helped put on the first LOVELOUD Festival with Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds in 2017.
“That was a sold-out show, it was just incredible,” Buckner said. The concert sparked the idea of finding a location for a larger festival along the Wasatch Front, opting for more of an urban festival than one that involved overnight camping.
Initially the thought was to have a festival somewhere in Utah County, Buckner said, but later another real estate broker pointed out that The Point would have a large amount of open space. Its location between Salt Lake City and Utah County, plus future transit stops for TRAX and the FrontRunner, made The Point an ideal location for a future festival.
Months of work led Blackwall to the July POMSLA meeting. Dan Reeve, also a partner at Blackwall Ventures, told the board the festival would fill a void in the market, noting Utah doesn’t have a venue like the one being proposed.
For reference, the most recent Kilby Block Party brought in around 90,000 attendees over a three-day festival. The festival grounds at The Point could hit 75,000 attendees in a single day by year five. The proposed daily capacity in its first year would be 40,000 attendees, according to the slide deck presented to POMSLA.
A conceptual layout of a music festival at The Point in Draper. Image supplied via The Point
The site could be used outside of music festivals as well, ranging from larger events connected with the Olympics to smaller gatherings like farmers markets or carnivals. TPP and Blackwall have also assembled a number of expert groups to create plans for different facets of a potential large-scale event, including festival operations and promotions, security, parking, traffic and other aspects.
Over the proposed lease term of 10 years, the festival grounds could draw in just under six million attendees, around $3.9 billion in total economic impact and around $163.5 million in new tax revenue, according to an economic study commissioned for Blackwall and TPP.
Reeve and Gustavo Velasquez, also a partner at Blackwall Ventures, emphasized to BSL the proposal with POMSLA would not draw from taxpayer money to create the festival or to pay for the $19 million in site improvements needed to enable the festival.
The improvements would be paid for by a Privately Imposed Fee (PIF) bond, which will be secured by different revenue streams. One of those revenue streams would be a 10% venue fee on tickets, merchandise and food and beverage sales during festivals and concerts.
In other words, fees paid by only those attending the events would enable the improvements needed for the events in the first place. By doing this, there would be no burden on taxpayers, Draper City or the state, and the bond would be paid back through the performance of the venue. The venue would also use a proprietary ticketing platform for ticket sales, sidestepping larger platforms like Ticketmaster that have long been scrutinized for nickel and diming fans.
According to the slide show presented to POMSLA, the 10% venue fee and an accompanying 2% fee for the proprietary ticketing system would result in cheaper tickets for fans, as larger platforms can charge up to 30% or more in venue fees.
A conceptual rendering of a music festival at The Point in Draper. Image supplied via The Point
Draper Mayor Troy Walker, who is a member of the POMSLA board, said during the July meeting he’s excited to see the board moving forward with this type of project. He said, “to have this opportunity come and present itself, it does seem like it fits really into what will be the greater project, and really sort of bring a sort of cultural feel to The Point, which is something I’ve always wanted us to have.”
Walker added, “Who knows, maybe you could put some ice on there around the Olympic time and do all kinds of things out there, but it certainly has potential to be really everything we kind of hoped would happen at The Point, and a lot sooner than it might have otherwise happened.”
While it’s far too early to tell what specific acts the festival venue could bring, Buckner said the goal would be similar to other large music festivals and bring in rock, pop or alternative acts. The presentation to POMSLA notes that large touring acts — citing Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen and Kendrick Lamar as some examples — have passed over Utah for tour stops. The Draper venue would aim to change that.
Velasquez said he believes the stars have aligned for this type of festival to come to Utah. He cited the state’s still-growing population, the success of other music festivals and the upcoming Olympics all as reasons to be optimistic.
“I think more than anything, people are happy to support a local venue that’s independently owned and operated,” Velasquez told BSL. “Rather than having to travel out of state and see some of these unique events or performances — obviously it’s always fun traveling — but it’ll be nice to have this kind of (event) in our backyard and have a best in class experience.”
I have presented and produced shows in Utah and across the US for almost 40 years and I have never seen so much venue activity as in the market now. It is fascinating and will be largely beneficial to the entire State as long as planning is rational and we don’t use public dollars to subsidize new venues that simply take activity from other publicly supported venues. In most industries this is not an issue as it is generally private funds at work in a competitive market. With venues that is often not the case. For this proposed venue I don’t think there is an alternative festival space and thus it is a worthwhile idea to investigate. The main questions I have regard the financing model. Who puts up the money? If financed by bonds who bears the risk? And, if the public is at risk, what is the real return for the public’s investment. Beyond that a better articulation of future activity is well worth considering as LiveNation is making enormous investments in the market and they control much of the big touring product, Provo is dancing with a crazy proposal for a 20k seat venue which would be another competitor and the Sandy America First Stadium is talking about 6-12 major events each year. Could be a challenging space to operate of these three behemoths are all chasing the same audiences.