DENVER — Music lovers will soon get to see their favorite artists in a unique venue — underneath Interstate 70 in Denver.
Project 70 is a pop-up music venue located underneath the I-70 bridge near the Denver Coliseum. The venue will open Tuesday with a performance by Turnstile.
Don Strasburg, president of AEG Presents Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest, called Project 70 an opportunity for an indoor/outdoors concert space, as the overpass provides cover for concert-goers while keeping the views of the mountains unobstructed.
“A couple of artists were looking for unique ways to do events, and it popped into my head and our team," Strasburg told Denver7. "The mission's right here, so we all just basically walked down here and walked around and took some measurements and realized that it would work really well."
AEG owns and operates several venues, including the Ogden Theatre, Bluebird Theater, Mission Ballroom, and Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater. Strasburg said Project 70 is not a permanent venue, and crews load in and load out the setup.
“I was inspired. I had seen pictures of this over in Europe and had seen a really cool-looking event,” said Strasburg. ”It looked like an indoor EDM rave kind of event, but it was kind of outdoors too. Then, friends of ours in New York started an event called Under the K Bridge, Under the Kosciuszko Bridge in New York, and it's been tremendously successful.”
Franz Hilberath, owner of MP3 PR, called this a special setting for people to enjoy music and experience their favorite performers.
“I think with the economy and times being tough, people are really looking at their wallets and deciding, 'Why should I come out to a show right now or what makes it special?' And I think, again, to credit AEG, honestly, looking at the situation in the community and what they need most,” Hilberath said.
Denver's music scene has seen some recent highs and lows, from the emergence of the Hi Points Festival to the shutdown of the Underground Music Showcase. Brandon Matthews, chair of the music department at MSU Denver, explained how this venue space is showcasing the needs in the community.
“I think that the music scene is really very active, very diverse, lots going on," Matthews told Denver7. "I think that this project happening underneath the freeway tells you that there is a need for more space and more variety of venues, and so I think that this popping up is the market's attempt to provide another option for us."
While Colorado is known for some unique music venues, Matthews said it will be telling to see how concert-goers feel about this pop-up and what it could mean moving forward.
“Red Rocks is so famous for its great acoustics, and then of course, I just mentioned the Colfax venues where sometimes those places can get so loud, it can be a problem for the surrounding neighborhood,” said Matthews. “We’re going to have to see how this place works out in terms of how are the acoustics, how does traffic interact with the music for the audience, and then how does the sound of the performance itself affect the neighborhood around it?”
Strasburg said AEG will soon announce upcoming events for 2026. Chase and Status are set to perform at the underpass venue on Oct. 4.
