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Breckenridge rejects SnowBall music festival

Caddie Nath
Summit Daily News
Vail, CO Colorado

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colorado – Unable to settle on optimal dates and concerned about fallout from drug and alcohol use, Breckenridge town officials declined to host AEG Live’s SnowBall music festival, formerly in Avon, next year.

“This is an event that I really can’t back,” Breckenridge Mayor John Warner said Tuesday. “There was a medical emergency aspect to the Avon experience. There were over 20 rushes to the hospital for alcohol and substance abuse overdoses. I just worry about that happening in our community.”

Warner noted that the nearest hospital is nine miles away in Frisco.



The SnowBall was on deck to be the third major addition to the Breckenridge event calendar implemented by the new council in its first five months of office.

Promoters of SnowBall, a high-profile, but problematic music festival held in Avon the last two years, asked Breckenridge several weeks ago to consider hosting the event in the spring of 2013.

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The concert yielded more than 100 arrests for Avon police last year, most of them drug and alcohol related, but organizers said Breckenridge won’t necessarily have the same problems.

“It was the way that Avon approached it,” AEG Live director of operations Rob Thomas told the council at Tuesday’s meeting. “These same artists play Red Rocks, which is a city-owned venue, all summer long without incident. That’s the bottom line with it, is it works at Red Rocks.”

But, after hearing mixed reviews from the lodging community and concerns from Breckenridge Ski Resort that the event would compete with its Spring Fever line-up, council members ultimately vetoed the festival Tuesday.


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