The owner of a new, $90 million amphitheater in Colorado Springs is pushing back against hundreds of public noise complaints by releasing test results that show the venue is in compliance with its permit and questioning who the complaints are coming from.
The 8,000-seat Ford Amphitheater — previously known as Sunset Amphitheater before its naming rights were formalized in June — opened Aug. 9 with three consecutive nights of concerts from multiplatinum Colorado act OneRepublic. By Aug. 14, city officials said their anonymous reporting app had received around 170 complaints about the volume of the outdoor performances.
More than 400 new complaints were also registered after the next weekend’s concerts, Aug. 16-18, during and after sets from The Beach Boys, Walker Hayes, and Iration and Pepper (respectively), according to the city. The venue is scheduled to host shows this weekend from Lauren Daigle (Friday, Aug. 23) and Primus (Saturday, Aug. 24).
“I am in no way dismissive of people’s concerns,” said JW Roth, who owns Ford Amphitheater and its parent company, Venu (formerly Notes Live). “But when we made the decision to build this and started the process with the city, 50 or so residents hated the idea of it being there. So I’m guessing those same 50 people put the opening date on their calendar and circled it so they could call in and complain about the noise.
“We’ve been tracking more than 80,000 positive impressions online from the past two weeks, so it’s frustrating to have this be so lopsided,” he added. “I’ve personally heard nothing but raves.”
In addition to the complaints registered with the city, the Next Door app and social media sites host dozens of poor reviews of the venue’s opening weekend, with residents citing consecutive sleepless nights and audible disturbances even with their windows closed.
“I’m a Northgate resident. I just got to hear (OneRepublic) play last night. I live 2.8 miles away from the amphitheater, but I could hear every word of their last song very clearly,” user nillywillCOS wrote on the r/Colorado Reddit thread. “They build a high-end venue with fire pits, luxury seating, and the added traffic congestion, but don’t give a second thought to the residents that have to hear it.”
The amphitheater is located at 95 Spectrum Loop in Colorado Springs, just east of I-25 and the Air Force Academy.
While multiple complaints may have come from the same people or household, Roth said, it’s hard to be sure since the app is anonymous and complaints are self-reported. This week, Venu released a report from a third-party sound measurement company, LSTN Consultants, that set up listening devices at the venue’s perimeter. The results show that the amphitheater is in full compliance with the agreed-upon limits, Roth said.
Ford Amphitheater operates under an agreement with Colorado Springs that allows it to exceed the usual 50-55 decibel (dB) limit placed on outside, human-made sounds in residential areas. Fifty dB is equivalent to normal conversation levels, car traffic or kitchen appliances. But thanks to its Noise Hardship Permit, the city raised that significantly.
The Ford Amphitheater agreement states that amplified sounds are not allowed to exceed more than 110 dB for five minutes at a time, or average out to 105 dB for the same amount of time. However, each increase of 10 on the decibel scale is a doubling of the perceived sound.
Sustained sounds above 110 dBs can permanently harm hearing, with examples of that volume level including jets, leaf blowers and car horns, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
While there’s an open city investigation related to the complaints, the current sense is that the venue did not violate the limits in its development plan, which was approved by the city council, said Max D’Onofrio, public communications specialist for Colorado Springs
“Ford Amphitheater has been granted a permit which authorizes it to exceed the City noise limits (City Code § 9.8.104) during upcoming events,” according to a statement he provided to The Denver Post. “The data voluntarily shared by the amphitheater shows the decibel levels during the opening weekend were below the allowable limit in the development plan. As an extra step, the City monitored decibel levels to gather its own data. The numbers the City recorded were comparable to what we received from the amphitheater.”
Roth admitted that he can sometimes hear train horns 15 to 20 miles away in Palmer Lake. That’s because the distance that sound travels can be affected by weather, as strong winds tend to carry sounds over greater distances.
“On Saturdays I can hear the marching band at the Air Force Academy from my house, and it’s not any louder than ours is, but it’s a different type of sound than people are used to hearing,” he said.
Metro Denver residents have lodged noise complaints over the years against a range of outdoor musical events, from concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison to sidewalk shows outside Wax Trax Record Store in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and various festivals. Each city has different rules, but they try to balance residential concerns with those of the band and fans who come to see them, promoters have said.
Complaints from Morrison residents forced a new sound limit at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 2014, following the proliferation of bass-heavy, electronic dance music at the 9,545-seat venue. One of the rules stated that the music should not exceed 105 dBs for one-minute averages after midnight on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends and holidays. Another addressed the rumbling nature of the bass — low-frequency sounds tend to travel farther, officials said — and set the limit at 125 dBs at 25-80 hertz for one-minute averages during similar time periods. (Note: Red Rocks show generally don’t go past midnight these days, according to Denver Arts & Venues.)
Roth has reason to act as a good neighbor, even beyond ticket sales. He’s still building out the Ford Amphitheater site and hopes to fill his upcoming seafood and chophouse restaurant and bar with people eating steak and drinking premium whiskey, whether they’re attending the show that night or not. For now, that site is filled by a 50-foot sound wall intended to further block music from leaving the venue.
“We’re constantly fine-tuning our systems but we’ve been open for literally two weeks, so we’re just now learning the best way to do some things,” he said. “But I don’t get to say, ‘Oops, sorry about that!’ I have to make sure we’re reducing the effects of our (concerts) as best we can. And while I want to emphasize that I do take these seriously, I also think we just need time to become part of the ambient noise you already hear every day, because then people will notice it less.”
Originally Published: August 23, 2024 at 11:04 a.m.
