By Kyle Harris, Denverite | Turns out the Underground Music Showcase didn’t die last year. Instead, organizers have announced Denver’s longstanding festival will be reborn in 2026 at a new location: the River North Art District.
The music festival’s most recent organizers — the youth music nonprofit Youth on Record and the event company Two Parts — hinted UMS was over in 2025. It would certainly, they said, be the last festival anytime soon on South Broadway – and maybe even the last time UMS would be a festival.
“Truly, it was a coin toss after the last one if this was ever going to happen again,” Two Parts CEO Keanan Stoner said in a Friday interview.
In 2018, Two Parts and Youth on Record bought UMS and committed to paying artists higher wages. Over the years, they invested money in monitoring for climate change, preparing for emergencies, instituting new safety programs and being ready for potential fentanyl overdoses, Youth on Record CEO Jami Duffy told Denverite last year.
Running a festival ethically and safely simply cost more than the organizations were bringing in. Duffy needed her nonprofit to refocus on its work with youth and get out of the festival business.
“UMS was a critical part of Youth on Record’s story, but ultimately young creatives are our North Star,” Duffy wrote in a recent statement. “The transition out of the co-ownership and management of UMS allows us to meet this moment in our city and in our nation. Young people and families urgently need more support, access to meaningful work and creative spaces, and protection at a time when their basic freedoms and lives are on the line.”
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Go here to read more:
https://denverite.com/2026/02/09/denver-underground-music-showcase-rino-2026/