10/05/2023
What happened to the Arise Music Festival?
In May of 2022, Arise was cancelled two weeks before the festival was planned to happen due to the Pueblo Sheriff, Kirk Taylor, not approving our Special Event Application—which then caused the ruin of the company. In the aftermath I attempted to discover the reason for the lack of approval while reporting, periodically, to the Arise community. This is my latest update.
--The Pueblo Sheriff never offered any reason for the cancellation to the public or Arise.
--They did write an inter-governmental explanation, that I recovered through CORA; however, that explanation was full of lies and misrepresentations. I could not find any evidence that the Sheriff failed to approve our application for the usual reasons: risks to public safety, crime prevention, disturbance to the neighborhood or our prior record of over ten years in another county.
--I then sent a formal complaint about the Sheriff to the Attorney General of Colorado, Phil Weiser. However, his office sent only confusing and evasive emails in return so that, in the end, I decided they were just evading the issue.
--About eight months later, I still do not have any verified reason for the cancellation. Given that I tried to work through the system, but the system did not work, I now feel justified in offering my opinion about the cancellation. Based on considerable evidence listed below, I believe the most likely explanation is that the festival was not approved because the Sheriff (democrat) did not want the festival in his county for his own reasons. I also believe he was both supported and encouraged in this viewpoint by Senators Hickenlooper (d) and Bennet (d) who were acting in the interests of their supporters, donors and friends at AEG, Rocky Mountain. I believe Phil Weiser (d) then ignored my complaint because he was not interested in investigating members of his own party. I am not aware of any evidence that suggests that anyone, involved in our lack of approval, was acting in the best interests of the Pueblo County government, or its people or the citizens of Colorado. Below, in the next section, I list the facts to support my opinion, along with sources or ways to access those sources, but I encourage you to interpret those facts as you wish. In this denial of our application, I think some fundamental and American rights were not only denied, but not even considered:
--Denial of Freedom of Assembly as long as you are not causing any harm.
--Denial of Freedom of Speech as Arise was about the voice of the people.
--Denial of Property Rights as Arise was to happen on land owned by me.
--Destruction of a unique and independent culture.
--Abuse of free enterprise by a governmental authority.
If you have any questions, you can contact me here: [email protected]. I am now bumping my request for an investigation to the federal and non-partisan level (although not yet clear how to do that.)
Below is the longer version.
Luke Comer, X producer and owner of Arise.
The Long version (with notes about sources when applicable.)
Arise operated in Larimer County for ten years with an excellent record in crime prevention/public safety (records avail upon request or through CORA.) We brought millions in revenue to that county, entertained many people with mixed genres of music, yoga, art, dance, wellness and workshops and was generally regarded as one of the best camping festivals in the country, as evidence by reviews online. Our only detriments were occasional noise complaints, which we strove to remedy immediately, as well as occasional misdemeanors requiring police and minor injuries requiring ambulances. We were sued for one major insurance incident but later cleared of all wrongdoing by all jurors in a court of law.
After purchasing our own property during the pandemic in Pueblo County to relocate the festival for 2022, we attained approval from all relevant, government agencies, as well as our neighbors (records available upon request). However, The Pueblo Sheriff neither approved nor denied our permit after five months of our requests which then forced the Planning Department to deny our special event permit two weeks before the event (records avail upon request). If the Sheriff actually denied our permit at some reasonable date, we could have appealed the decision and probably won (part of their county code). So this raises the question: why did they not deny our permit at some earlier date especially given Arise constantly asked for their response? Were they trying to prevent the appeal and cause as much damage to Arise as possible?
Within several weeks of the cancellation of Arise, Pueblo Sheriff Kirk Taylor (democrat) was nominated to Federal Marshall, mostly at the behest of U.S. senators Bennet (d) and Hickenlooper (d) and then soon thereafter appointed the job with their help.
https://www.chieftain.com/story/news/2021/02/03/pueblo-county-sheriff-kirk-taylor-finalist-u-s-marshal-colorado/4374913001/
https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/6/bennet-hickenlooper-applaud-nomination-of-pueblo-county-sheriff-kirk-taylor-as-u-s-marshal-for-colorado
https://www.nbc11news.com/2022/06/06/pueblo-county-sheriff-nominated-us-marshal-colorado/
Arise’s contact, Captain Steve Bryant, was then promoted to Undersheriff of Pueblo. (Before he headed the Emergency Services Bureau.)
https://www.pueblosheriff.com/directory.aspx?EID=10
Of course, this was strongly noticed by me: on the one hand, I regarded that Sheriff’s Department as evasive, deceitful and unhelpful and even much worse—yet they were all being promoted?
Through CORA I then pulled records from both Larimer and Pueblo County, trying to find reasons for the denial—but found none as mentioned in the summary above. In the Sheriff’s interoffice emails, I found excessive amounts of evasion, intentional or unintentional incompetence and malfeasance, and most especially, outright lying that was easy to prove through documentation. (Details found in the Complaint sent to the AG which is published on Arise’s Facebook.)
Since AG’s have some oversight on Sheriffs (legal brief avail upon request), Arise then sent a formal, class-action complaint to Phil Weiser (d), noting that many thousands of Colorado people, businesses, artists and etc. were harmed by this cancellation amounting to millions of dollars. For six months the AG gave me the bureaucratic shuffle, especially their communications director, Lawrence Pacheco (d). In the end, I concluded that the AG was just trying to bury the issue.
Interestingly, six weeks before the cancellation, I contacted the Attorney General’s office to inform them that the Sheriff was not following due process but the AG just claimed that they were. I contacted Senators Hickenlooper and Bennett, as well as the Pueblo County Commissioners (d) and the current Sheriff (d) at various times and with various informal complaints--all whom ignored me. (Most of these emails are available upon request: and one note, Bennett said he would have his staff look into the issue but then I never heard back from him.)
--Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet were closely linked, and assumably still are, to Arise’s central competitor: what is generally perceived as the the quasi monopoly and monopsony, AEG Rocky Mountain. (My writings on this company are available upon request.)
--Senator Bennett was the managing director for six years of the Anschutz Investment Company (the A in AEG) which, as Forbes magazine insinuated, explained why he was one of the richest politicians in the US:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2019/09/26/how-2020-presidential-candidate-michael-bennet-built-a-15-million-fortune/?sh=1a6e2cd96ed3
https://www.denverpost.com/2010/09/25/bennets-storied-career-is-marked-by-adaptability/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2019/09/26/how-2020-presidential-candidate-michael-bennet-built-a-15-million-fortune/?sh=1a6e2cd96ed3
https://www.denverpost.com/2010/09/25/bennets-storied-career-is-marked-by-adaptability/
--Senator Hickenlooper appears deeper into AEG than his friend, Bennet.
To quote the past president of AEG, Rocky Mountain, Chuck Morris: “I don’t know of any other person (then Governor Hickenlooper) in a major political office who has supported music like he has. He has made all of our jobs easier — for a band to become famous, for a promote (Morris) to do well.”
In Colorado, AEG is about the only promoter in the state; so Morris is basically saying that Hickenlooper does a lot to support his business.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/06/governor-hickenlooper-music-industry-educate-colorado-kids/
https://www.denverpost.com/2010/09/25/bennets-storied-career-is-marked-by-adaptability/
Additionally “We used to joke that he (Hickenlooper) went to more shows than three-quarters of my staff when I was at AEG,” Morris says.
https://www.westword.com/music/chuck-morris-pulls-together-all-star-lineup-for-hick-a-palooza-11809953
Hickenlooper started “Take Note Colorado” with Libby Anschutz, the daughter of Anschutz.
--Both of these senators, especially Hickenlooper, receive political contributions from the heads of AEG, Rocky Mountain. https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup
--Generally, AEG is regarded as some version of a monopoly or monopsony in the state of the Colorado as the article below mostly supports. I additionally add that its government supported. AEG owns many of the venues in Colorado, control others and then book others—both at the smaller and larger level—and locks most musicians into “radius clauses” and other forms of leverage. They then also control the ticketing for all those venues. The government contracts with them heavily for their venues and for their ticketing. As a monopoly or quasi-monopoly without any signifigant competition, they are able to control what they pay for musicians and production, and what they charge for tickets—and thus, most likely, profit excessively. (It’s a private company so these records are not available.) Even one competitor, like Arise, however, can expose and upset that system thus suggesting their likely motive to disrupt our business.
https://www.denverpost.com/2015/01/28/aeg-live-rocky-mountains-expands-to-northwest-region-worrying-local-promoters/
--Red Rocks was almost always scheduled by AEG with bands that competed for our same demographic.
--In 2016, AEG produced their own Arise look-alike on the same weekend as Arise, three hours away, with bigger acts. https://www.facebook.com/VertexFestival/
--In 2022, they attempted to produce an Arise look-alike at our prior location in Larimer County in the same month with many of the same people who were once associated with Arise.
https://retro1025.com/aeg-summer-music-festival-west-of-loveland-not-happening/
https://apps.larimer.org/specialevent/application_detail.cfm?id=6068
(Please see names of past Arise workforce listed on the application.)
--These same people were associated with people who attempted to undermine Arise’s reputation by making posts on social media and writing letters to music and booking agencies. (Available upon request.)
--I have way more evidence on all these point; however, I cannot present it for legal reason—at least not in this context—because I cannot verify it. The evidence comes from conversations with AEG, people who experienced AEG direct and my experience in the Colorado market.
--One dictum of logic is: correlation is not causation. In this case, there is lots of correlation yet I am aware that I do not have the cause: “the smoking gun.” However, there is so much correlation, and way more than presented, so that I feel justified in saying: well, this probably is causation. To summarize: I do not have any justification for the Sheriff’s lack of approval. But I know the Sheriff, based on his bio, probably did not want the festival. I know that this Sheriff was communicating with these senators during our application. And these senators were positioned to help or hurt his promotion—and thus had leverage over him. I also know that these senators were closely tied to AEG and I know AEG was likely motivated to see Arise fail not only to preserve their marketshare, but their monopoly as well. I also know that nobody would be dumb enough to leave any “smoking gun” behind. So they all agreed with each other, in some private conversation, hey, yea, well, we do not like that festival—and thus our end. And finally, I then went to all these people and said: hey, can you provide some explanation or investigate this, or hold these people accountable. And everybody said either nothing or nothing that made any sense. And thus the “cover up.”
At the least, AEG blatantly receives government favors while returning those favors while another business, Arise, does not even ask for those favors, does not brownnose politicians, and does not give them money or promote them, but succeeds on its own merit even in an adverse marketplace, and is then blatantly mistreated and abused by the government. One way or another, this is corruption.
One final note: If you are not familiar with festivals like Arise, you might ask: who cares, its just a concert in a field, right. Not really. Research shows that independent festivals like Arise that offer mixed experiences, including Burning Man, Lighting in a Bottle, Dirtybird Campout and etc. provide enormous benefits for our culture. A study from Yale University concluded:
“Overall, 63.2% of participants (in these festivals) reported having transformative experiences so profound that they left the events feeling radically changed, including a substantial number of people who did not expect or desire to be transformed. People who reported transformative experiences also reported feeling more socially connected with all human beings, and with every passing day they spent at these events, participants expanded their circle of generosity beyond family and friends towards including distant strangers. They recontacted some of the original attendees and also 2,000 people who had attended the event but were not originally interviewed. The researchers found that transformative experiences and their prosocial feelings persisted at least six months.”
https://news.yale.edu/2022/05/27/transformative-effects-mass-gatherings-burning-man-are-lasting
I knew that Arise connected people, made them feel they were part of something larger than themselves—and this in turn explained our byline: “Community through Creativity.” Given that we Americans are increasingly isolated through technology and ideology, and many other factors, Arise was providing one of the best possible survices for our culture—and I hope that the people, who made us fail, are brought to justice and held accountable.
Luke
Relevants notes about me:
I do not have any police record, maybe one speeding ticket from several years ago, no tax evasion, or valid, public complaints. Arise only had one lawsuit against us, but as mentioned, we were cleared of any blame. One party tried to sue me, back in 2019 (I think it was) but those parties were later proven associated with AEG: the suit was also dismissed as not only groundless but also stupid by my attorneys. I always made sure everyone was paid at Arise, even when we lost money. Before closing the company, I made sure everyone was paid for any money out of their pocket, or for any services actually rendered, even as they were not paid for services not rendered. Ticket buyers were refunded, but denied their processing fees which went to the ticketing company not Arise. I have never advocated for the use of alcohol, ma*****na or other substances that alter consciousness (aside from writing about psychedelics, in balanced ways, on Facebook maybe two times in ten years). I am not politically motivated or inspired—but I at least vote (except for the past year) and always voted Democrat, as does nearly all of my family. This update is not politically motivated: I only hope we can help each party be the better version of itself. I once believed that the Colorado democrats would probably align with Arise’s mission: to generate community and creativity, protect the environment, foster entrepreneurship, support impoverished areas of the state and challenge the corporate monopoly—but in reality, I have seen zero evidence of this support and everything to the contrary. I have only received support from one Republican in my tenure, but only in votes and words to this effect: as long as you are not hurting anyone, I support your business whether I care about what you are doing or not.
I do not personally know Sheriff Kirk Taylor or Senator Bennett and Hickenlooper; based on their history, I would guess they are honorable people but I have been around long enough to know that surface is not always reality.
