The latest iteration of the special event permit application for the Seven Peaks Music Festival proposed for The Meadows just outside Buena Vista revealed even more confusion. In addition, there is the total lack of an association with a nonprofit entity that would exempt the festival’s organizers from decibel-level caps.
During their Tuesday, June 29 meeting, the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners, determined not to make a ruling, continuing the discussion to 9:00 a.m. Wed., July 14. That timing was chosen to allow Live Nation, the organizer of the Seven Peaks event, the opportunity to amend their application to come into compliance with the state statute and whatever the current public health order is at the time.
Dierks Bentley is one of several headliners for the Seven Peaks Music Festival proposed for Labor Day weekend.
Two other motions were made: the first to give Live Nation until the close of business on July 6, to amend their application to bring itself into compliance. The second motion set a 1:00 p.m. Wed. July 7 special Board of Health meeting to discuss the county’s event capacity limits.
At the moment, the county has a 5,000-person cap on events held in Chaffee County. Live Nation’s Site Manager for Seven Peaks, Jim Reid, admitted in a Chaffee BoCC hearing last week that it had already sold 6,000 tickets for the event.
Since that time, it is reported that they have sold an additional 1,000 tickets for the event, and campsites on the 277-acre parcel are reportedly also sold out.
In past applications for the festival, the event organizer has done the event application in the name of a nonprofit. While initially county leaders were told this was due to the liquor licensing for such events, it has since been clarified that the involvement of a nonprofit organization releases the event organizers from the state’s 50-55 dB (decibel) sound limits.
There has been controversy over the Seven Peaks Music Festival almost since the first one was held in the county in 2018. Concerns surfaced about traffic, noise, and crowds. Those opposed to the application say that the event has consistently broken sound limits. The discussion has revealed confusion about whether the sound levels should be measured from a point near the neighboring property boundaries, or from the soundboard.
Neighbors of The Meadows have continued to object to the three-day Labor Day festival as something they did not want on the border of their properties. The property is in agricultural production as a hay meadow for much of the year and has no permanent festival structures.
Criticism has intensified this year (the 2020 Seven Peaks festival was approved, but canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and recent Zoom meetings have had 80 to 90 attendees, or more. Comments are not one-sided; there is an active base of people supporting the festival and its importance to the county’s fledgling live music environment.
Last week, commissioners were dismayed to hear that Live Nation had already oversold tickets exceeding the county’s current event size cap. Like many Colorado mountain communities, the county has struggled to address how to safely open as visitors surge in. Not only is the COVID-19 pandemic not over, but dangerous variants such as the Delta variant have emerged, and the county’s vaccination rates have declined.
Vaccination rates in Chaffee County currently stand at 62.2 percent. It does not appear that the county will meet President Joe Biden’s goal of 70 percent of the population vaccinated by July 4.
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