Seven Peaks Music Festival creates its own town

...

Photos by Patrick Shea

VILLA GROVE — Fans flocked to the Seven Peaks Music Festival on private land outside of Villa Grove for three days of music, food, and fresh air. Festival founder and headliner Dierks Bentley routinely draws massive crowds, thrilling the people with his music on the road.

But he doesn’t throw in accommodations, security, food, and services like he did for his Labor Day party. With the help of Live Nation, multiple vendors, and San Luis Valley agency cooperation, Bentley’s event turned into a small city for a few days.

Representing the Saguache County Tourism Council at a booth between the two stages, Saguache Hotel owner Andy Hackbarth said, “This crowd is a lot like cruise ship crowds.” Hackbarth performs on ships through the winter and recognized a discriminating group.

With weekend passes running $250 apiece, the fans showed they will pay top dollar for music. Considering travel costs, food on-site or cooked in camp, and other expenses, the holiday adventure in the northern San Luis Valley came with a price.

The headliners and other performers command a respectable ticket price on their own, but Bentley’s event crew produced an infrastructure that could rival small towns and stadium concert venues across the country.

The showers and personal toilets were spacious and clean. Toilets flushed, and hand washing stations were stocked with paper and soap. Crews in trucks circulated constantly through the campgrounds to clear away mounds of trash bags. On Saturday, two of the eight enormous bins brimmed, and the huge recycling container was filling up as well. Car traffic from day visitors and campers kicked up dust, mitigated by a roving water truck. Water stations positioned throughout the venue delivered plenty of hydration.

Food vendors and other booths ringed the open space between stages. Fans who positioned their chairs far from the main stage had screens to watch on both sides of the performers. Footage from multiple camera operators captured views on-stage and into the crowd. Behind the fans in lawn chairs, the Whiskey Row stage filled with dozens of other fans, but the music from both stages didn’t crash together.

While performers and DJs kept the music going nonstop, circus performers from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Salida conducted demonstrations and provided instruction in an area next to the Kids Music Camp tent where children and adults had a chance to play acoustic instruments and learn from musicians.

When the party was over, crews started a deep-clean of the site. The permitted leach field designed to accommodate the septic from the weekend will take nearly nine months to drain away underground. The community response and interagency debrief meeting are also still in progress. On Sept. 15, event Incident Commander and Saguache County Sheriff Dan Warwick will meet with Colorado State Patrol, firefighters, and other active participants for a thorough review of the weekend.