Not much has gone right for the town of Dillon in 2024. From the Town Council’s ethical and judgmental lapses, to its lack of a long-range plan after having its negotiated planned unit development rejected by the voters, to another year of the eyesore that is the Uptown 240 project, not a lot has gone right. But, instead of using the council as an easy target for criticism, they should be congratulated on something they got right.

Anyone who has attended a concert at the Dillon Amphitheater knows that the town did things right when it decided to upgrade the amphitheater a few years ago. 

The numbers speak for themselves. In 2022, 76,503 people attended a show. The numbers increased to 94,624 and 115,568 for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. These increases can be attributed in part to the fact that the venue has increased the number of shows each year up to 44 in 2024 from 36 in 2023. But it can also be attributed to the quality of the shows. While there were shows in several genres of music, simply having variety will not bring people out to attend. Instead, the artists need to be worth the competition for our entertainment budget. So many excellent shows in such a brief period — Bob Dylan, Jason Isbell, The String Cheese Incident, Goose, Yonder Mountain String Band, Leftover Salmon, My Morning Jacket, Pretty Lights, Primus, Big Wild and the list goes on and on. 

For those who attended any of the free Monday shows, what a blessing of being able to experience the Rebirth Brass Band, moe., Spafford, Circles Around the Sun, Travelling McCoury’s and several more just by walking in and finding a comfortable place to spend a few hours. This does not even begin to address the other events held during the year, including yoga, country-music dancing, movie nights and a beer festival to boot. 

In addition, and putting aside the “fun” components of the amphitheater, it is paying for itself. While it is difficult to allocate specific expenses to event sales, it is apparent that even with factoring in the costs associated with the capital improvements made, the venue is making money for the town. And it makes this money for the town in a myriad of ways. First, ticket sales, along with the concession revenue, pay for all the events held there. In 2024, it produced a surplus of around $1.1 million, which would be cut in half after adding in the annual debt service on the facility ($315,150) and some employee salaries.

The second major economic benefit of the shows concerns the amounts visitors spend while visiting Dillon for the shows in lodging, meals and other travel-related expenses. While I would have guessed that the shows draw people from outside Summit County, I was not expecting to find out that, according to the town staff, about 70% of all amphitheater paid-show attendees are from outside its driving range. The staff conservatively estimates that the town receives at least $416,700 in additional sales and lodging tax revenues due to hosting events. It is fair to conclude that the amphitheater is putting close to $1 million into Dillon’s town coffers every year. In case you were wondering if this was just a lucky break, a brief review of the income and expenses for the marina shows this facility also paying for itself. No, this was not luck, but rather a sound move of a prior council to allocate funds for rebuilding the venue with an emphasis on the overall experience. The sound is excellent, and the views and sunsets are rewards in their own right. 

For 2025, my hope is that the Town Council takes this favorable analysis of what it has done right in the past and use this knowledge to reach some finality with a host of additional commercial projects standing still. Perhaps 2025 can be the year that the two potential planned unit development’s in town get off the ground and some semblance of a town center takes form. And yes, I understand that I was one of the town citizens who voted against the initial planned unit development proposal and can see the hypocrisy in voting against a planned unit development and then complain that both are at a standstill. But if the developer and the town thought a planned unit development was best for the Lake Dillon Drive project from the outset, they can easily amend their prior plans to address the citizens’ concerns of height, workforce housing and traffic survey, and not waste so much of their time, money and other resources to get having to return all the way to the starting line again. 

If Dillon is producing a nice revenue stream today based to a large degree on the amphitheater, imagine the additional sales, lodging, excise and other taxes to be collected as a result of more people spending a lot more money in town. Hopefully, the Town Council and developers can put their egos aside and work to get something done and moving forward when next Spring arrives. I still miss my breakfast at the Arapahoe Café, which still sits empty through the negotiations and looks lonelier every time I walk by. 

Scott M. Estill’s column “Challenges, Choices, Changes” publishes biweekly on Thursdays in the Summit Daily News. Estill is an attorney, author, and public speaker who lives in Dillon when not traveling or attending to legal matters in Denver. Contact him at scott@scottestill.com.