GLOBAL DANCE COLORADO
TYPE: Live Production, Multi-Stage Festival
VENUE: Red Rocks Amphitheater, Empower Field at Mile High, Denver, National Western Complex (LVC)
SCOPE: Mainstages, Venue Art Installations
RELATIONSHIP: ESP has designed and built GDF from its first edition, 20+ editions
THE CHALLENGE
Global Dance Festival is one of Colorado's largest annual electronic music events. ESP is responsible for both mainstages plus the exterior art installations distributed across the venue's parking lot and surrounding spaces.
ESP has produced Global Dance Festival from its first edition across more than 20 productions. The scale of the event, the complexity of the venues, and the ongoing nature of the relationship have required a production infrastructure that gets more refined and more technically ambitious every year.
WHAT WE BUILT
BOTH MAINSTAGES
Full stage design and LED environments for both mainstages. MADRIX pixel mapping across both stages. Pre-production design includes full CAD modeling and rigging plots coordinated with the venue's structural team.
ART INSTALLATIONS
Multiple large-scale art installations distributed across the venue's exterior spaces. Custom LED sculptural environments and immersive lighting that extend the festival's visual identity well beyond the stage footprint. These installations transform the parking lot and approach areas into part of the festival environment rather than transitional space.
EXECUTION
GDF is a full outdoor production built in the venue's parking lot. Coordination runs across stagehands, AEG, and multiple production vendors simultaneously, with ESP managing its own pre-production in parallel. Load-in spans multiple days across both mainstages and the exterior art installation footprint. Strike is completed on a tight post-event timeline with the full scope cleared in a single push.
THE RESULT
Over 20 editions, ESP has helped establish Global Dance Festival as one of the premier regional electronic music events in the country. The exterior art installation program has become a defining visual element of the event — something that makes GDF look different from every other festival in the region before an attendee sets foot inside the gates.
20+ EDITIONS FROM THE FIRST
2 of 4 MAINSTAGES OPERATED BY ESP
Empower Field AT MILE HIGH
WORK WITH ESP ON YOUR NEXT PRODUCTION.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR FESTIVAL OR EVENT. WE'LL OUTLINE A TECHNICAL APPROACH THAT FITS THE SCALE AND THE FORMAT.