The Dirty Turkeys look out over Folsom Field from the Champions Center rooftop during their performance at CU’s home opener against Weber State on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (Photo by Tom Pelke, courtesy of Ty Tullar)
CU Athletics bets on live bands to keep Folsom's bleachers full
The student section at Folsom Field is supposed to drive the energy of a University of Colorado football game day. But by the third quarter, many students are already headed for the exits.
In September 2026, CU Athletics launched a new game-day tradition, “Bands in the Stands,” bringing live local music into the stadium before kickoff, during halftime and throughout breaks. This season’s first set was Boulder indie-rock band The Dirty Turkeys.
“Our crowd loves to sing songs. The goal is that they are very much involved instead of spectating,” said Marcos Rael, CU’s assistant athletic director of marketing and fan experience.
“The energy of any game day starts with the students. Once they’re gone, the energy is zapped from the building,” Rael said. “Students are the Energizer Bunny behind all of our atmospheres.”
Ashley Roelofsz, a CU junior studying marketing , stays until the final whistle. She said the live sets offer another reason to stick around.
“Football games are a good way to immerse yourself in the Boulder community,” she said. “Music only adds to it, whether it’s a live band or a banger playing through the speakers — the whole crowd is singing and dancing together.”
Leaving games early has become a familiar sight in the CU student section. By halftime, shared energy routinely drops as students stream out of the stadium.
“We recognize that it is a problem,” Rael said. “It’s understandable when you’re beating a team 52-21 that students will want to go have fun somewhere else.”
Julia Libby, a CU junior studying environmental studies, attends games for the social aspect and typically leaves during the third quarter.
“A lot of traditions they do are just not that engaging,” Libby said. “I feel more detached from the football, but people really have a desire to connect through music here.”
For the Dirty Turkeys, it was a chance to play on Boulder’s biggest stage in front of nearly 50,000 people. Only this time, instead of watching the game from the student section, they were rocking out six stories high on the CU Boulder’s Champions Center roof.
“It’s our hometown as a band, where we went to college. We have all been to football games in that stadium,” drummer Ty Tullar said.
The band is an established local act, but a 50,000-seat stadium is an entirely different scale for them.
“We were playing for probably a hundredfold the amount of people we have ever played in front of before,” Tullar said. “Never thought we would be playing Folsom Field, but there we were.”
The Dirty Turkeys’ set was CU Athletics’ test run for a bigger push to keep students in their seats through the fourth quarter.
“For the past three years, I’ve wanted to create something that was unique to our game day presentation,” Rael said.
Rael got the idea for “Bands in the Stands” while watching the FIFA World Cup. During a match in Houston, Mariachi Imperial de América performed in the stadium, inspiring Rael’s vision.
He texted a video to his boss, CU athletic director Fernando Lovo, five words: “I want to do this.”
Three days later, Rael pitched the idea to Lovo, who had challenged the department to create a new kind of game-day experience earlier that summer.
The initiative was designed to complement the Golden Buffalo Marching Band rather than replace traditional routines. The athletic department wanted to pull Boulder’s thriving live music scene directly into Folsom Field.
“Colorado loves live music — who doesn’t?” Rael said.
“Bands in the Stands” focuses exclusively on homegrown talent. With the next two acts already booked, CU is using Folsom Field to give local and student artists major exposure.
Colleagues pointed Rael toward the Dirty Turkeys after catching their set at Pearl Street’s annual Bands on the Bricks summer concert series.
After accidentally ignoring Rael’s first few calls while on a camping trip, the band eventually heard his voicemail, returned the call and signed on.
“We didn’t really believe it. We thought we were playing at the concession stand or something,” bassist and guitarist Sam Baker said.
For Rael, game days are not just about football — they are a full-scale production. The priority is keeping 50,000 fans engaged and loud, whether quarterback Julian Lewis throws a 40-yard touchdown pass or an incomplete pass.
During the Sept. 12 home opener against Weber State, the student section thinned out noticeably by the third quarter, despite CU holding a dominant 45-14 lead.
“If we are winning or losing by a lot, it can be boring for people in the stands,” Roelofsz said. “I didn’t even know the Dirty Turkeys were playing. I saw them on the screen and didn’t think anything of it until someone pointed up and I saw them in the top corner of the stands, hanging over the railing.”
For emerging acts like the Dirty Turkeys and Sarah P and the Hay Pullers, who took the rooftop set for the Oct. 3 game against Texas Tech, that unfamiliarity is the main appeal.
CU Athletics hopes bringing local music into the stadium will do more than fill the dead air between plays. It wants a stadium atmosphere tied directly to Boulder culture.
As for band members hanging over the Champions Center roof railing six stories above the crowd?
“That can never happen again,” Rael said with a laugh.
