Salt Lake City’s new entertainment district between the Delta Center and the Salt Palace Convention Center could have a new fixture in the near future: a 6,000-seat indoor music venue.
Smith Entertainment Group announced Tuesday it would partner with Live Nation — one of the largest entertainment companies in the world — to build a new indoor music venue as part of the ongoing efforts to create a new entertainment district Downtown.
The new 6,000-seat indoor venue is “the first of many major announcements regarding SEG’s plans” for the entertainment district between the two venues, according to a Tuesday news release from SEG.
“Our goal has always been to bring enormous opportunities to downtown,” said Ryan Smith, SEG chairman and CEO, in the news release. “Once the transformation of Delta Center was underway, partnering with Live Nation on what a world-class concert venue could look like in downtown became a top priority. Not only will it bring the best artists in the world to Utah, but it will also bring a million people downtown to experience Salt Lake City every year.”
During a press conference Tuesday, Smith sat alongside SEG co-founder Ashley Smith and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino to announce the new venue. Ryan Smith said that once renovations began to the Delta Center, one of his first calls was to Rapino to try and get an additional music venue Downtown, saying, “this is the number one target that we want in Downtown Salt Lake to activate our community.”
Rapino credited Ryan Smith for reaching out and getting the ball rolling on the venue. He called the new venue “a rare opportunity,” adding that most of the time new music venues built near sports arenas are hardly ever in a city’s downtown.
Rapino also said that nowadays, a 6,000-seat venue is in a sweet spot for touring artists. While some can sell out arenas and others are more suited for cozy 200-seat venues, many artists look for mid-size venues to perform.
“We wouldn’t have that today,” Rapino said. “We would fly over Salt Lake, as you would call it. It wouldn’t be a market we would play. So this has been open, a great opportunity. We’re thrilled to be part of it.”
The venue’s mid-size capacity would range from 2,000 to 6,000, the news release says, which would fill a gap in Salt Lake City’s concert market. Many of the city’s indoor concert venues like The Union, Eccles Theater or Abravanel Hall don’t have capacities above 4,000 — while larger venues like the Delta Center or West Valley City’s Maverik Center can each comfortably hold over 10,000 guests.
In addition to being a music venue, the news release also says the venue would be able to host, “a variety of corporate, conference, and community events.”
When answering questions from reporters, Ryan Smith said the venue would be a joint venture between SEG and Live Nation, adding the latter would be the main operator of the venue.
Despite the Tuesday announcement, SEG doesn’t have specified plans of where the venue would be located in the entertainment district, nor what the overall block could look like.
Mike Maughan, an executive at SEG, said Tuesday that there’s no set location for the music venue, adding that the company is in the, “early stages now of identifying architects of mid block will be putting together our phasing plan, (and) we know that this will be a central component.” Maughan added portions of the Salt Palace are slated for demolition starting in Q1 of 2027.
The Tuesday announcement is the latest development for the area’s planned overhaul that’s been funded largely with taxpayer money. More recently, the Utah Department of Transportation confirmed 300 West would be reconstructed to allow the street to go beneath a pedestrian plaza, though the street wouldn’t be buried as deep as 200 West.
Despite the large influx of taxpayer funds that have already been set aside for the project, Maughan didn’t specify how the new concert venue would be funded. When asked, Maughan said, “SEG has committed $3 billion to the downtown, and both Live Nation and SEG will be committing substantial funds to this investment as part of this music and entertainment venue.”
SEG is currently building an 89-foot, 452-stall parking structure to the southwest of the Delta Center and fronting 100 South, which was just recently approved by the Salt Lake City Planning Commission.
After the event, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall told Building Salt Lake the new venue will be a great addition to the city’s entertainment scene that will enhance year-round activation of Downtown.
“This is a new tool in the belt of what downtown is becoming,” Mendenhall said. “It’s not a duplicative venue. It brings a new sort of level of the entertainment spectrum that is, as Michael (Rapino) said flying over Salt Lake City otherwise.”
In the news release, SEG makes clear there will be future announcements detailing the entertainment plaza, though detailed plans have not been made public.
“Both SEG and Live Nation will be committing considerable financial investment into the development of this venue,” Smith said in the release. “This is the first of many announcements as we continue to work at attracting the best and most influential brands in the world to invest in our state.”
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