What Does the Opening of Washington’s Mean for Fort Collins’ Local Music Scene?
It could mean quite a few things, in fact the new largest venue in town may have just increased our local musicians’ opportunities to succeed in a big way. While the new venue provides a space to host more nationally touring acts, it is also a larger venue for local artists to, hopefully, take the stage and add a great venue to their resume. Better still, this venue is brought to us by the same people who run the Bohemian Foundation, which puts on Fort Collins’ annual downtown festival Bohemian Nights at New West Fest, an event that features both nationally touring and locally based acts and according to the site, “… reveals Fort Collins as a music city.” Bohemian foundation also operates a seasonal concert series through Thursday Night Live, in Old Town Fort Collins along with year round shows at The Armory, if you’ve ever been to either you’ll know these people know how to put on an excellent show.
Adding another venue isn’t necessarily all good news, more venues also equates to more competition between businesses. One more venue aiming to pack the room will inevitably have some level of impact on the other venues in town. While some may be concerned that the addition of another large venue will detract from the success of Fort Collins’ other large venue, The Aggie Theatre, I believe that this rapidly growing city and Northern Colorado region will do just fine to support both. More to that point, Bohemian Foundation personnel have no intention of competing directly with the Aggie, and hope to create their own role in our music scene. Cooperating rather than competing as a beginning mindset can only point to good things for everyone involved.
Another major boon to local musicians hoping to make an appearance on this new stage is the presence of Greta Cornett as the marketing and talent coordinator for the Bohemian Foundation. Cornett is also a member of Fort Collins Musicians Association and has been a driving force behind their annual event, FoCoMX, which features Colorado artists exclusively.
Washington’s is the second new music venue to open it’s doors in the past few months, with Magic Rat preceding this opening by only a few weeks. Continuing to up Fort Collins’ venue count, we can look forward to a new venue where The Boot Grill once operated, just north of the Colorado State University campus. The point here is that this new venue is being run by people who have a long history of working incredibly hard for the growth of our wonderful music scene. While it is important that we are careful with our future, so as not to “flatten the local music scene” as Austin’s community has apparently done after massive growth, we shouldn’t allow our fear of the unknown to keep us from pushing for greater things. The pain of Austin, where too much growth drove up cost of living and forced many musicians to relocate, doesn’t have to be our own. The huge success of national and international festivals like SXSW, which draws musicians from all over the country every year, has brought huge investment to the city and driven up the cost of living. Where Fort Collins differs is our musicians support system. The city’s largest music events are already focused heavily on the local scene and continue to be successful as such, our community is clearly in support. What’s more, there are a number of new housing projects in the works for Fort Collins, along with a hopeful removal of the troublesome “U+2” housing law, the relatively high cost of living here should remain attainable for local artists for some time to come. I believe with organizations like the Bohemian Foundation leading the charge, we are in for a wild ride and years of incredible growth as a community and as a musical hub.
