By Tess Creasy
The Underground Music Showcase (UMS) — a Denver festival along South Broadway — will be celebrating its final year this month. The weekend-long celebration will feature over 200 performances from local artists. Throughout its 25 years in operation, UMS has shown unwavering commitment to supporting local artists and providing a uniquely safe and welcoming community for artists and festival-goers alike. The showcase has developed quite a legacy since its 2001 conception by Denver Post journalists Ricardo Baca and John Moore. The festival has also evolved over time — the most notable shift being in 2022 when Youth On Record bought in.
This collaboration meant massive strides in areas like diversity and accessibility, mental health and harm reduction, and increasing artists’ wages. As an example, a conference hosted by Youth On Record — the Get Loud Music Summit — provides educational and networking opportunities for musicians to learn in-depth about the industry. This kind of training is a crucial resource for workers in such a complex field.
Of course, the mission to provide music-industry resources as well as fair wages is rather costly. Despite great support and ticket sales, properly financing the festival to include these resources has unfortunately become too much of a challenge. Thus, UMS has decided to end the festival after this year.
“Even if the festival sold out every year, which it doesn’t, it’s still not enough to meet the moment of both safety standards and social standards to do a festival that has a real impact and a mission,” says co-manager of UMS Jami Duffy. Though heartbreaking, the decision goes to show just how honorable its organizers have been. “I would not have done much differently in terms of doubling down on mission, including an accessibility plan, a music summit, sober supports, harm reduction supports, increasing artist wages. I would have done all of that again. We don’t need to save nickels to skip out on mission. That’s not who we are at Youth on Record,” Duffy says.
Further, UMS’ closure speaks volumes to the recent uncertainty of festival culture on a mass level. Rising costs and lack of support are making it increasingly difficult to hold these events, hence the downsizing and cancellations of festivals all across the country. In fact, as many as 40 festivals were cancelled this year in the US alone (source: CNN). To reverse this trend would require significant subsidies from external sources.
Although Denver will miss this festival dearly, we’re happy to know UMS is going out with a bang and may re-imagine itself for the future. Organizers felt it was right to openly celebrate this as the finale, so that festival-goers can make the most of it. “Let’s make this final bow the loudest yet,” says Duffy.
The festival will take place July 25-27. Legacy UMS performers Devotchka, El Ten Eleven, and the Velveteers will perform as well as local acts Ahjzae Dallas, Caleb Schwing, Clementine, and others.