Alpine Valley Music Theatre won’t open this year

By Tracy Ouellette

SLN Staff

On Thursday, Live Nation announced it will not be opening Alpine Valley Music Theatre for the 2017 season.

“It’s an unusual year in that a lot of artists we’ve traditionally hosted are playing in other buildings or not playing at all this season,” said Jon Reens, Live Nation vice-president of marketing for Midwest music.

“Either they’re not coming through Wisconsin or are playing at places like Wrigley Field instead of Alpine Valley,” he continued. “Dave Matthews, the band, isn’t touring this year. Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds are touring together, but they’re playing at Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island in Chicago.”

Reens said Live Nation had been in discussions with other artists to fill the venue’s open spots for the last seven to eight months, but wasn’t able to line up the acts it needed to open the music theater for the 2017 season.

“Whether it was touring schedules, or production design where they can’t fit on our stage, or other things, they were not able to confirm for 2017,” Reens said.

Live nation will use the down season to make some repairs and upgrades to the music theater, including some general maintenance around the facility, repairs to the roof of the main expo building and replacing some of the vending equipment along with some food and beverage equipment.

Reens said Live Nation is committed to re-opening the music venue for the 2018 season and are already focusing on that.

“We have absolutely zero intention of abandoning the facility,” he said. “We are refocusing on 2018 to build a more robust schedule. We had to make a difficult decision to not open for this year, but we’re focusing on 2018.”

Reens said they will be approaching the artists who have traditionally played at Alpine for the 2018 season and are also working on adding new artists to the line up.

18 Comments

  1. This is just another sign of the times. As classic Rock n Roll groups slow down and others choose different places to put on their shows. It is a sad thing because entitled “Down hill from here”. Alpine Valley is by far one of the best places to see a great show. Case in point, The Grateful Dead’s 1989 3 day run which became one of the bands best run of shows and spawned a CD and DVD which Dead Heads consider the best of the best of shows. Alpine Valley will rise again!!!

  2. Alpine Valley is in the East Troy area, not Elkhorn.

  3. I have not gone to a concert at Alpine, but most of the reviews I read have been very negative from concert goers. Could this be part of the reason

  4. So, this is depressing!! I’ve been to so many concerts at Alpine!! It’s awesome for concerts!! I saw ZZ Top, Doobie Brothers like 3 times there, Rod Stewart, Bonnie Raitt, Double Trouble and more there. What a bummer):

  5. It is sad to see. I really enjoy seeing Jimmy Buffet at Alpine Valley every year. BUT, I will have to say the ridiculous/stupid prices they try and gouge you on for a single beer (was like $9 EACH) and also the “flavored sugar” they call margaritas and try and sell for $16 a piece really had me scratching my head. I ordered two beers and when they told me the price, I told them to keep em. People get tired of this, complain, and the artists stop coming. Very sad.

    • Seriously Shannon? It’s 1 or 2x a year? Have you ever been to an NFL game or an MLB game ? Good lord the beers are that much everywhere & as a season Packer ticket holder the cost of those is into the $100’s a PIECE. This is music, this is happiness, this is memories, this is forget about whatever’s bringing you down Pure JOY!

  6. Yeah, Alpine has long since passed being one of my preferred places to go… the experience is not that good… too pricey, seating too far away if you go lawn… I would much rather go to other venues. Rather than shutting it down for the year though they should have found ways to scale down their expectations and host some festival or smaller bands at more economical prices that would at least fill the seating area. Otherwise you are just changing habits of the bands and consumers to go to other venues.

  7. Can you please add more bathrooms outside the gates!!! Every time I’m there for concerts people are urinating in the parking lot!

  8. Alpine Valley is in East Troy,not Elkhorn.(lol).Since Live Nation is going to fix things up does this mean your gonna rasie prices on stuff to make up for fixing it up?Plus the bands might make more money playing at other places.There might be more then what Live Nation is telling us why there will not be any concerts there this year.Alpine Valley is one of the best places to see a concert in this area.

  9. I too saw many concerts at Alpine and it is by far the best venue around for size and sound. I saw the Greatful Dead, Black Sabbath with Rob Zombie, and was there the weekend Stevie Ray Vaughn died. Amazing experiences but I was really turned off during my last concert. On what I thought would be another rare musical experience ended up being an annoying frustrating day. We saw Black Sabbath w/Zombie and the temps were in the 90’s; there was no shade, 12oz beers were $7 each, water was $5 a bottle (15yrs ago) they completely ran out of ice, and by the time you coukd get to a vendor, the beer was warm and so was the water. We were sunburnt, exhausted, broke, and disappointed. I will never go back, just like Summerfest, Miller park,, Bradley Center;…etc, they overcharge you to death on food and beverage. They all just take advantage of the consumers now

  10. This is so disapointing to hear! Jimmy Buffet at Alpine is such an experience. My family makes it a tradition every summer and look very forward to it. My summer will just not be the same! I hope this is just a temporary thing, or even just a bad rumor.

  11. This is sad. I was going to concerts there 40 years ago. AC/DC, Areosmith. I had so much fun and have so many happy memories of that place.

  12. I went to Ozzfest many times at Alpine Valley, also went to a few other rock shows. This was my favorite venue for a long time, until hard rock bands stopped going there. I think it would be a huge thing if Alpine could get a camp ground going, so people can stay, and maybe get a 2/3 day “fest” of their is going. Something kinda like Rock USA, Rock-fest, Northern Invasion or even Sonic Boom (no camping there either). All those events are huge and have big turn outs.

  13. I commented on March 17! Alpine is an awesome place for concerts …. outside and just awesome!! There are seats or you can sit/stand on the ground!! It doesn’t get much better than Alpine!!

  14. Maybe midwestern music fans will just go to other venues instead of being targeted by ticket writers and local police in Walworth Co. Perhaps others venues are surrounded by businesses who actually want music fans and thier business

  15. I just hope they add bathrooms and concessions down by the reserved area. It is ridiculous to have to walk all the way up the hill to go to the bathroom. They have more then enough room on either side to do so.