For a fifth-generation Colorado local who grew up on a small ranch simply north of Colorado Springs, the dream of being related to the tune trade gave the impression of an extended shot for JW Roth.
As an alternative of completing highschool, Roth opted to get a GED after which labored nights on the Douglas County Sheriff’s Workplace. He ultimately set to work two jobs—within the Denver Police Division and as a salesman at Common Meals. The latter enabled Roth to get a role within the brokerage trade, which allowed him to in the end turn out to be a founding father of AspenBio Pharma.
In 2015, he began Roth Industries together with his son, and in 2019, he stepped clear of the daily operations of Roth Industries to concentrate on his true pastime: tune.
The irony, Roth says, is nowadays he would by no means be capable to get a role on the police division, at a brokerage company and even at his personal corporate with only a GED as a result of a bachelor’s stage is needed for all the ones positions.
Roth’s latest challenge, Venu Conserving Company, is disrupting the tune trade with plans to construct 10 luxurious out of doors tune venues around the nation. With Venu, Roth plans to construct an organization this is fan-founded and fan-owned.
Venu opened its first stadium, the Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs, Colorado, final summer season. Ford Amphitheater is competing immediately with the mythical Purple Rocks Amphitheater, positioned about 70 miles away in Morrison, Colorado.
OneRepublic, a band from Colorado Springs, opened Ford Amphitheater’s live performance collection in August 2024. John Fogerty, Steve Miller Band, Foreigner, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss additionally carried out there in 2024. Displays for the 2025 season come with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Dwight Yoakam, Leon Bridges, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and “Bizarre Al” Yankovic.
“I grew up a tune nut,” Roth says. He recollects a time in 1978 when he and his pal had new girlfriends they sought after to provoke in order that they invited them to a Rolling Stones live performance ahead of they even had tickets to the display. Roth and his pal camped out in a single day on a concrete sidewalk within the rain to protected the ones tickets.
As Roth turned into extra a hit, he had the chance to wait concert events everywhere the rustic. “I realized [the venues] have been all form of outdated and dilapidated, they usually have been constructed again ahead of rideshare and the fan call for had simply grown,” Roth says.
He additionally spotted that the NFL and MLB homeowners have been placing in combination public-private partnerships with municipalities to construct state of the art stadiums. Those stadiums aren’t only a venue for staring at sports activities; they’re about revel in and atmosphere, he says. Many be offering nice eating places and different distinctive reviews. Those stadiums impressed Roth to determine Venu Conserving Company, which turned into a publicly traded corporate on Nov. 29, 2024.
First of all the corporate used to be referred to as Notes Are living, but if Roth made up our minds to take the corporate public, he learned his corporate wanted a special identify to create a memorable inventory image: Venu.
Venu is lately construction Sundown Amphitheater in McKinney, Texas. The entire value of the stadium is set $300 million, Roth says. Just like the NFL and MLB stadiums Roth visited, Venu put in combination a public-private partnership to construct the amphitheater.
As an example, to construct Sundown Amphitheater, town of McKinney is contributing $110 million during the contribution of land, tax incentives, abatements and refunds within the type of money from assets tax and gross sales tax, Roth explains. In go back, town will get financial building as a result of as soon as the stadium is constructed, motels and eating places will begin to open. “Different leisure amenities display up as a result of folks come to what I construct, and what I construct is a magnet,” Roth says.
Inside each and every amphitheater, Roth builds firepit suites, which he sells to native companies, similar to a rental construction sells person gadgets. This permits the companies to depreciate their funding, Roth says. Every firepit suite proprietor can select to both give away tickets for the suite to purchasers or staff or to hire their seats within the firepit suite to fanatics, similar to assets homeowners hire out flats via Vrbo or Airbnb.
Sundown Amphitheater can have 295 firepit suites on the market ranging in dimension from 4 to ten seats, all with giant, overstuffed chairs. The least dear suite is $295,000, and the costliest is $800,000, Roth says.
Alternatively, Venu’s amphitheaters don’t simply cater to fanatics who pays 1000’s of greenbacks to peer a live performance. Roth’s hope is to make the revel in of seeing reside tune as comfy and opulent as imaginable even for the ones seated the least bit dear seats at the garden. To make the garden seats extra lavish, a convenience pad is positioned beneath the garden’s synthetic turf. Seats within the amphitheater are 3 inches wider and deeper than at different out of doors tune venues, and each and every seat has its personal cup holder.
Plans name for Venu to construct stadiums in El Paso, Texas, and Oklahoma Town and Damaged Arrow, Oklahoma.
Roth believes that tune is the best unifier. “It’s essential to put an unbiased, a Republican and a Democrat that dislike each and every different, that may’t agree on the rest, however they are able to all take a seat in combination and sing each and every lyric of ‘Resort California,’ and they’ll experience that six mins and 9 seconds,” he says.
Track fanatics come from all walks of lifestyles. Some will save for months to shop for garden tickets, and a few will spend 1000’s on firepit seats, however they’ll all take a seat in combination, united of their love of reside tune, Roth says. That have doesn’t occur at a wearing match since the fanatics are rooting for various groups, he says.
“I will’t inform you in specifics a reminiscence that used to be created each and every time I went to a ballpark,” Roth says. “However I will inform you a reminiscence from each and every unmarried live performance.”
Photograph by way of Josh Bourgeois @JBCreative. This text at first gave the impression within the Would possibly/June 2025 factor of SUCCESS mag.
