The Fox Silences the Middle Ground Boulder Music Scene

From its opening in March 1992, to the handfuls of then up and coming performers who have gone on to win Grammy awards, The Fox Theater in Boulder, Colorado has built a locally beloved reputation of hosting the likes of greatness. 

Located in the heart of Boulder on The Hill, a college and family neighborhood nestled below the Flatiron mountains, the venue is able to accommodate 625 people; an intimate concert experience for concert goers, compared to the multiple to tens of thousands person capacity venues around the state. 

Though, with local band Dry Ice recently pulling out of their supporting slot with Mellowpunk for a Jan. 29 show, citing issues with the venue, the narrative runs differently. 

I spoke with Pierre Booth, band member of Dry Ice, to hear about their side of a story that middle ground bands in the greater Colorado area have heard all too well. 

“There’s this method of ticketing that is pretty normalized around Denver, when it comes to like smaller bands or local bands, that I’ve realized that is not practiced everywhere. The more I thought about it, it’s kind of really unfair and it’s called consignment tickets,” Booth states. 

In a now removed post by the band, Dry Ice stood up to call out The Fox for their consignment ticketing as a reason for pulling out of the Mellowpunk show. 

“It’s where you have each artist personally sell tickets and they get that much money back from the total amount of money made that night. It’s really like you’re paying to play. You’re proving your worth, putting in all of this work, on top of all of the work you’ve put in as an artist, to make everything and that considers how much you get paid,” the band member adds. 

Without a guaranteed payment up front, the band also called upon the venue for respect. 

“They tell you, ‘We’re gonna pay you this much.’ We are workers. We should get an hourly wage. We’re not makin’ commission,” Booth states.

“A week before the show, they didn’t tell us how they were doing ticketing otherwise, and it’s in a pandemic. That is not enough time to round up people who buy consignment tickets,” the musician adds. 

As we dive deeper into the Colorado music scene, two major players dominate: Z2 Entertainment and AEG, Anschutz Entertainment Group; Z2, owning the majority of music venues in the Boulder and Fort Collins area, and AEG, owning the majority of metro area music venues. 

One man, Don Strasburg, has feet in both doors as he’s a partial founder of The Fox Theater.

Unable to speak for an interview, but through Instagram messaging, former Fort Collin’s Aggie Theater, which is also owned by Z2, employee Maddy Erskine informs me of a controversy that rocked the 2016 Colorado music scene. 

Strasburg, part-owner of Z2 Entertainment and vice president and senior talent buyer for the Rocky mountain AEG office, “suddenly” was the property owner for a Walnut Street venue in Boulder, CO according to a KSL article published in 2016. This venue was poached from prospective buyer Scott Rednor, owner of the Shakedown Bar in Vail, CO. 

Further explained by the article and quoted from Rednor, “As soon as Don Strausburg got word of it, he put together the funds and bought the building to shut us down.”

The middle ground music scene, described in the article as “the artists who have progressed beyond the garage but haven’t yet cracked The Fox,” are the bands and musicians much like Dry Ice who are being hit hardest by the dominant hand of entertainment groups in the area. 

“That’s the reason a lot of us distrust him.” Erskine goes on to say about Strausburg. 

A dominant man, one to not allow outsider influence into his owned properties through Z2 Entertainment, The Fox, The Boulder Theater, The Aggie Theater, Chautauqua’s Summer Concert Series, 10 Mile Music Hall, Breckenridge RiverWalk, Steamboat Springs Music Pavilion, Agave Avori and Public House Crested Butte, Strausburg is determined to “shut down” any competitor. 

The Fox, a locally beloved venue, is one owned on the roster of a competitive music industry powerhouse. Consignment ticketing, aimed by the venue towards smaller middle ground bands and musicians, is yet another trickle down act from the industry powerhouse himself. 

“It’s a lot of work to get every name written down and then give it to the venue, give them that cash, to have them take their portion, and then give it back to you at the end of the night,” Booth states.

Further illuminated with Dry Ice citing merchandising cuts from the venue.

“The Fox sent us this packet and in there it said that they were taking 15% of all merch, which never have I ever encountered a venue that has asked for percentages of your merch. The whole point of merch is that you get all the money,” Booth states.

“They said that was industry standard,” the band member goes on to say.

Matt Lane, operations manager for Z2 Entertainment, declined for comment on the matter. Though, in an open letter in response to a different article by the Daily Camera published in 2016, that also calls out the entertainment company for their selfless acts against the Boulder music scene, Lane states “At what point do we acknowledge that the fan is casting their vote of who gets to play the venues by way of their dollar?”

For many outside of a general music scene, the statement may appear understandable. To earn respect, popularity, and a fan base that will “cast their vote” by “way of their dollar” may seem feasible. Though, the stepping stones to achieve this have been removed as a result of Z2’s operational management style.

With consignment ticketing, an outdated and rare method, and merchandising cuts, middle ground artists who are deemed below the pedigree required for respect by the venue, as a result of their status of success, are effectively barred from playing without facing degrading hurdles. 

Lane’s open letter statement reads in a tone that echoes — taking massive cuts from tickets and merchandise by the venue, bands display the value of their worth to the venue — profit over music. 

That ultimatum is what drove Dry Ice to pull from the Jan. 29 show. 

Though, not all bands are subject to this treatment. 

“Every artist I know, they have never had people ask for cuts of their merch,” Booth states. 

“None of our other shows have had that. We’ve gotten guarantees since we’ve (the band) been together. Since the pandemic we haven’t encountered consignment tickets,” Booth states.

“I don’t know if it’s just because we’ve gotten bigger that they’ve done away with it,” the band member mentioned other venues the group has played. 

To display worth by financial success to a venue, a band is able to bypass the consignment hurdle if the venue utilizes it. 

To not contain the desire to play a venue that does not respect you for your musical worth, and rather monetary gain, is not held by many local up and coming musicians as much as it has in recent decades. 

Nationally, in recent years, musicians’ rights have been in the forefront of public media, from Taylor Swift’s legal battle with Big Machine Records over losing the rights to more than half of her catalog, to Kesha’s landmark lawsuit against infamous pop music producer, Dr. Luke, and the anti-conservatorship #FreeBritney movement for pop star Britney Spears. 

“It is possible to get respect,” Pierre Booth states. The band member goes on to say that playing house shows, rather than facing disrespect in the middle ground, and accepting shows that do not disrespect you is well worth it.

Unfortunately, accepting those shows in the Boulder and Fort Collins areas, especially at The Fox theater, as a middle ground artist proves difficult. Though, with the thriving Boulder music scene, house shows are abundantly popular.

Local organizations such as, TEXT ME WHEN YOU GET HOME, a non-profit creative team that emphasizes community experiences centered around art, hosted their first music and art event in Sept. of 2021 in the backyard of a north Boulder home. 

The middle ground scene may be suppressed by competitive entertainment companies, but with local bands’ passion for music, the opportunity to bypass the consignment hurdle has been taken somewhere else: the underground and outside of Boulder.