Experts say audiences want to get home sooner, and companies are listening

When it comes to going out for a show, 7 o’clock is the new 8 o’clock.

Are we getting older? Or are our area arts leaders just getting wiser? Probably a little of both. But from theater to comedy to live music, the trend is clear: Live performances are starting earlier.

I went to see a band called Animals in Exile play at Lost Lake on Sunday, and it’s a good thing I set the alarm because the concert started at 5 p.m. Not so long ago, it was rare to see any opening band plug in an amp before 9 p.m.

The Denver Center’s home-grown theater company has been ahead of this particular curve for a few years now, with all evening shows (except opening nights) starting at 7 p.m. The Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, Colorado Springs Theatreworks, Theatre SilCo (in Silverthorne), Two Cent Lion and Shifted Lens are among other theater companies that have embraced 7 p.m. start times for evening performances.

At the Bas Bleu Theatre (in Fort Collins), the plays still start at 7:30 – but an expanding series of recurring midweek programming like the Comedy Brewers (improv comedy) and The Listening Room (intimate live folk music) start at 7.

And the matinee, once generally considered the throwaway performance of the week? They now regularly outdraw evening performances across the board.

The reasons for this expanding shift to earlier starts stems from common sense to strategy to widespread anxiety over declining attendance.

• Common sense: Whether you surveyed audiences in 1920, 1950, 1990 or last week, one thing has not changed: Live theatergoers tend to be between 55 and 75 years old. And they don’t want to be out all night.

“Our going to 7 o’clock start times was in response to what we’ve heard from our audiences who don’t want to be out at the theater until 10:30 p.m. anymore,” said David Siegel, executive director of the Ent Center for the Arts, which effectively runs Theatreworks. That’s a professional, union theater company run through the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Siegel said the call for earlier start times has come from audience members across all ages and demographics. He said that since 2023, the number of out-of-town households buying a ticket to any Ent Center show has increased 39.8%. That’s defined as beyond a 50-mile radius, which can make for a lot of late-night driving.

“And that’s a challenge, especially for older audiences,” Siegel said.

• Strategy: When you operate out of a large arts complex shared by many other local arts organizations, that means you also share parking. That’s true for the Denver Center Theatre Company, which performs at the Denver Performing Arts Complex alongside the Colorado Symphony, Opera Colorado, the Colorado Ballet and even its own Broadway division (which hosts touring productions of visiting musicals).

“All Theatre Company performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. curtains to help alleviate the parking-garage flow between (our) shows and other events in the Denver Performing Arts Complex,” said DCTC Associate Director of Communications Brittany Gutierrez.

The same applies to the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, which performs out of Boulder’s Dairy Arts Center. Earlier start times give all of their patrons a competitive parking advantage as well. And audiences love their host companies for that.

• Anxiety: In most sectors, attendance at cultural events has not fully bounced back from the pandemic shutdown, though recovery trends vary considerably by art form. Live theater, film, galleries and museums remain down. But live music? Consider that, in 2024, Red Rocks was the fourth-most-attended concert venue in the world.

That volatility has companies experimenting with new ways of doing things. Like Ovation West, an umbrella organization that runs the Evergreen Players (a theater company) and the Evergreen Chorale. Executive Director Graham Anduri has been shaking things up since he arrived in 2023, and why not?

“We were noticing for the last couple of years that our evening shows have become less well-attended than our afternoon shows,” Anduri said. “We got some feedback from patrons who were telling us, ‘I really would like to go see this – but I don’t like driving in the dark.’ Or if we had a performance down in Denver, our Evergreen patrons didn’t want to drive back up the hill in the dark. Or if we had something in Evergreen, our Denver patrons didn’t want to drive back down the hill in the dark – especially in the wintertime.”

Thus, the 4:30 p.m. Saturday start time has just been born, at least for one year of study. For half of that year, patrons will now be driving home with at least some remaining natural sunlight. The results for the first show were mixed, Anduri said, which is understandable given that the company’s four-week run of “Annie Get Your Gun” was upended by the shootings at Evergreen High School. But the 4:30 show scheduled for Sept. 13 – a performance canceled by the tragedy – had sold the most advance tickets of all.

There’s no telling yet how earlier start times might affect related industries like restaurants that depend on a pre-theater dinner crowd. But it should be a bonanza for places that serve after 9 p.m.

The idea of a 4:30 p.m. start brings with it a whole new way of strategizing your weekend. Which is why, for years, Theatreworks has offered its Sunday matinees at 4 p.m. 

“I think about that as a very Colorado-specific weekend choice,” Siegel said. “It allows people to go to the mountains for a hike and get back in time to see a show as a nightcap – and still be home by 7 o’clock.”

I’ve been hearing from companies all year that Friday nights have become their hardest night of the week to sell. The idea that Saturday afternoons might one day fully replace the traditional Saturday night show is off-the-charts wild. 

For decades, live theater from Broadway to Denver generally started at 8:30 p.m. In the 1970s, that started to shift back to 8, and, in the early 2000s, to 7:30. What’s interesting now is that for decades, arts organizations have been known for chasing the new or elusive demographic they don’t have. These companies seem to be fully focused on the demographic they do have, which is encouraging – and uncommon.

By the way, the “earlier” trend is showing up in other innovative ways. The ubiquitous outdoor summer movies in the park no longer wait till sunset to begin. The Bluebird Theater’s “Rock and Roll Playhouse” is a popular series of concerts that allows children ages 10 and under the opportunity to rock out in a safe space. Next up: “The Music of the Beatles + More,” starting at 11 a.m. on Oct. 18.

Anduri doesn’t think his radical new approach, specifically to Saturdays, is, really, all that radical. In the end, he said, “it really just comes down to popular demand – and listening to your audiences.”

Erica Brown on the birth of ‘Blackstone’

It is a little bit of a distraction watching actor, poet and hip-hop artist Jeff Campbell perform his heartfelt and thoroughly engaging new production, “Jedidiah Blackstone” surrounded by all that amazing talent. The new production tells the largely forgotten – more like “never told” – tales of Black frontier pioneers who had a profound impact on the growth of Central City. The work is, in Campbell’s own words, very much a mining expedition of its own.

The story, while not a traditional musical, includes four musical interludes performed by Campbell (known for a long time in the Denver music scene as Apostle) with an impressive lineup including dancer, choreographer, teacher and warrior DeAndre Carroll, neo-soul vocalist Merrian “MJ” Johnson, and cultural tastemaker DJ Mu$a.

Read more: Our interview with Jeff Campbell

And then there’s local blues legend Erica Brown, winner of the Colorado Blues Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. That someone who has riffed with B.B. King and Al Green will be jamming for 10 performances just doesn’t happen. Yet, there she is.

And why is that, when there are concert gigs to be had just about anywhere and everywhere?

“It was important for me to say yes to Jeff because of the stories he’s telling,” Brown said. “He is literally shining a light on ‘the dark side of the West.’ That’s what we call untold Black history stories that are integral to what makes Colorado the state that it is.”

“Jedidiah Blackstone” performs through Sunday at the Clayton Early Learning Center, 3801 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Call (720) 331-7977 or go to emancipationtheater.com.

E-town honors Jane Goodall

Among the many posting remembrances of Jane Goodall this week is Boulder’s Nick Forster, creator of the enduring national radio show “e-town.” Goodall was a guest several times.

“We celebrated her 70th birthday with friends in Boulder 21 years ago (!) and got to see her in action at events of her own,” Forster wrote. “She was, of course, an advocate for animal rights and the environment. But she was also a pioneer and champion for women in science. She was committed to bringing children into nature, inviting them to feel their connection to all living things.

“More than anything, with her passing, we mourn the loss of one of the best examples of what generosity, intelligence and humor can do on behalf of the global community.”

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at john.moore@denvergazette.com