After 14 years, Utah’s Park City Institute will no longer hold their annual St. Regis “Big Stars, Bright Nights Concert Series” at Deer Valley Resort’s Snow Park Amphitheater, leaving organizers scrambling for a new host venue.
This past December, Deer Valley Resort notified PCI that they would no longer renew the contract to hold concerts there, according to the Park Record. PCI Executive Director Teri Orr was shocked by the news and wished PCI knew about it earlier, since they were only given less than three months to look for new venues.
“If we had had a heads up last fall when our season ended, there might have been more places available,” Orr said in an interview with Park Record. “But people had already made plans to fix, refurbish and work on places that we might have been able to schedule.”
A spokeswoman for Deer Valley, Emily Summers, said that the resort will now produce their own concert series that will better accommodate the 5,000 seat venue. The Director of Marketing, Coleen Reardon, added that the resort conducted a lot of research and decided that the venue will benefit more with their own concert series, in order to become “one of the premier series and outdoor concert venues in Utah.”
“It is the end of a chapter,” Orr said in a press release. “…We loved the beautiful space, and will miss being there. We immediately began the search for a new location for our 2018 summer series, since our patrons plan their summers around our specific shows.”
Orr went before PCI’s Special Events Advisory Committee on Wednesday to share three potential locations that the series could take place on city-managed land. No matter where the show takes place, it’s sure to include both legendary and up-and-coming acts. Last year’s lineup included Smash Mouth and Melissa Etheridge, along with fresh performers like X Ambassadors and Kellie Pickler.
This year’s lineup will be announced next month. Deer Valley, who has partnered with Salt Lake City-based First Tracks Entertainment to implement a new Deer Valley summer concert series, will announce the dates and artists this May.
