COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 16, 2026--
Venu Holding Corporation ("VENU" or the "Company") (NYSE American: VENU), owner, operator, and developer of premium live entertainment destinations, today announced that its flagship Ford Amphitheater reported strong premium seating demand, with both performances reaching sellout or near-sellout of available inventory, across two recent performances, Alex Warren on June 3, 2026 and Yo-Yo Ma with the Colorado Symphony, with Peter Oundjian, Music Director, on June 5, 2026. The back-to-back results underscore the strength of consumer demand for VENU's unique, premium live entertainment model and the growing market position of the award-winning Ford Amphitheater as one of Colorado's premier entertainment destinations.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260616108003/en/
"This overwhelming demand is a direct reflection of what we have built at Ford Amphitheater," said JW Roth, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of VENU®. "When you put the fan experience first and deliver a truly elevated product, the demand follows. That is the model and it is working- there is a great season ahead."
The premium inventory at Ford Amphitheater includes the venue's signature Luxe FireSuites® and Owners Clubs, offering in suite service, and an elevated hospitality experience unlike anything else in the market. The consistent sellout performance of these offerings demonstrates the commercial viability of VENU's premium seating strategy and its contribution to the Company's diversified revenue model.
Ford Amphitheater has hit the ground running in the 2026 season, with standout performances from John Mulaney and Turnpike Troubadours setting the tone for an exceptional year ahead. The 2026 season features an impressive lineup of world-class artists and events including O.A.R., AJR, Dierks Bentley, a Star Spangled celebration, Disney’s Frozen in Concert with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, The Black Crowes, Sublime, Lindsey Stirling, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Lauren Daigle, Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton, Ty Myers, Brantley Gilbert, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and for King and Country. Additional performances are expected to be announced as the 2026 season continues to take shape.
Tickets and more information can be found at fordamphitheater.live.
About Venu Holding Corporation
Venu Holding Corporation ("VENU") (NYSE American: VENU) is a premier owner, developer, and operator of luxury, experience-driven entertainment destinations. Founded by Colorado Springs entrepreneur J.W. Roth, VENU® has a portfolio of premium brands that includes Ford Amphitheater, Sunset Amphitheaters, Phil Long Music Hall, The Hall at Bourbon Brothers, Bourbon Brothers Smokehouse and Tavern, Aikman Owners Clubs, and Roth’s Sea & Steak. With venues operating and in development across Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas and a nationwide expansion underway, VENU is setting a new standard for live entertainment.
VENU has been recognized nationally by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Billboard, VenuesNow, and Variety for its innovative and disruptive approach to live entertainment. Through strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as AEG Presents, NFL Hall of Famer and Founder of EIGHT Elite Light Beer, Troy Aikman, Aramark Sports + Entertainment, Tixr, Niall Horan, and Dierks Bentley, VENU continues to shape the future of the entertainment landscape. For more information, visit VENU’s website, Instagram, LinkedIn, or X.
About Ford Amphitheater
Ford Amphitheater officially opened in August 2024 as a premium outdoor venue in Colorado Springs, purpose built for world class entertainment. Nominated as Best New Concert Venue of the Year by Pollstar Magazine in 2024 and named Billboard's Top West Coast Amphitheater on the publication's prestigious 2026 Top Music Venues list, the amphitheater pairs thoughtful architecture with elevated guest amenities, including Luxe FireSuites and on-site premium dining experiences such as Roth’s Sea & Steak and Brohan’s elevated cocktail lounge.
The venue hosts a wide range of programming, from major national touring acts to community-driven events, serving as a gathering place for live music, civic celebrations, and cultural connection across the Pikes Peak region and beyond. Ford Amphitheater is booked and operated in partnership with AEG Presents Rocky Mountains and the VENU Arts & Culture Foundation (VACF), a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, and your patronage of events at the amphitheater supports the Foundation's mission and grant-making efforts.
Learn more at fordamphitheater.live
Forward Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While Venu believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the company’s filings with the SEC, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. Venu expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether because of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
Yo-Yo Ma with the Colorado Symphony, with Peter Oundjian, Music Director | June 5, 2026 performance at VENU's Ford Amphitheater
Alex Warren | June 3, 2026 performance at VENU's Ford Amphitheater
WASHINGTON (AP) — An endorsement from President Donald Trump is worth a lot in Republican primaries. But is it worth more than $100 million in Georgia? Can it propel a congressman past an insurgent outsider in Alabama? Can it transform a candidate into a front-runner in Oklahoma?
Trump has been at the center of this year's midterm campaigns, and his influence will be tested in different ways Tuesday as four states and the District of Columbia hold primaries.
Among Democrats, the primaries will hinge on longstanding divides between progressives and moderates as the party tries to chart the best path forward to November.
Here are a few things to watch as voters go to the polls in Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia and Oklahoma.
Nothing is certain in politics, but a “complete and total endorsement” from Trump is about the surest path possible to winning a Republican primary.
Rick Jackson is testing that truism in his campaign for Georgia governor. The healthcare tycoon, who faces Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in a runoff, has given his campaign more than $100 million to try to convince Republican primary voters to overlook Trump's advice.
Trump endorsed Jones more than a year ago and reiterated his support last week, praising Jones' “Courage and Wisdom” in a social media post. Rarely has the power of Trump's endorsement been tested against such a lopsided spending disparity.
Jones finished first with 38% and Jackson second with 33% in the May 19 primary. Now the election to lead one of the nation's preeminent battleground states will be decided by the voters who didn't back either of them.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma's Republican primary for governor will test Trump's endorsement in a different way. There, the president weighed in late, throwing his support two weeks ago to former state Sen. Mike Mazzei among a crowded field without a clear front-runner. The race will go to a runoff if no candidate gets a majority.
Trump is used to getting his way, but earlier this month his choice for governor of Iowa, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, lost to Zach Lahn in the state's primary.
Trump rose to power as an outsider, the head of a “Make America Great Again” movement keen to bulldoze the old political order.
But now the onetime insurgent sits atop a sprawling establishment. What happens when he endorses an insider candidate?
That question is at the heart of the Republican primary runoff for Alabama's open Senate seat.
Trump is backing U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, a three-term congressman who has promised to be “a warrior for President Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda" if elected.
He faces former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson, who is presenting himself as a Washington outsider, trying to harness the anti-establishment fervor that propelled Trump to power to defeat Trump’s preferred candidate.
Alabama is a Republican stronghold, so whoever wins the primary will be heavily favored to prevail in November over either candidate in Tuesday's Democratic runoff, business owner Dakarai Larriett and lawyer Everett Wess.
The seat is being vacated by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee in the race for Alabama governor.
One of the leading Democratic contenders in the District of Columbia mayor's race, Janeese Lewis George, describes herself as a democratic socialist, a political denomination that became more prominent with Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns.
George’s bid for the party’s nomination is not so far removed from democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's upset victory for New York City mayor last year. And, as in New York, the race has drawn national attention, including the president's.
Trump indicated days before the mayoral primary election that he might take over the city if George wins, saying “we won’t put up with it.” George called Trump’s threat “an attack on democracy itself.”
The overwhelmingly Democratic city's relationship to the president is a focal point of the campaigns as Trump has exercised broad power over Washington, D.C. That’s included an open-ended deployment of National Guard troops in the streets and his culling of the federal workforce, a chunk of the city’s jobs.
Some residents were frustrated that the mayor, Muriel Bowser, didn’t push back enough on the administration. Part of George’s platform on her website, which heavily focuses on affordability, is to “protect Home Rule” with “leaders that stand up and fight back, not shrink in the face of injustice.”
George and another Democrat, Kenyan McDuffie, who’s focused on public safety, are two of the seven candidates whose race will be the first decided with D.C.’s new ranked choice voting system.
Like a handful of other places, D.C. voters will rank the candidates on a ballot, and if no one crosses 50% of the popular vote, then residents' second choices come into play. That happened in Maine, where election officials started counting ranked choice votes for governor and a key House race three days after election night.
In D.C., election officials have warned the new system could delay results by days.
Six years ago, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger resisted Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud and his request to “find 11,780 votes” to overtake Democrat Joe Biden.
Now, in the first open election for the seat since Raffensperger’s defiance, the two Republicans in the runoff echo Trump’s falsehoods to varying degrees.
Candidate Vernon Jones, who was previously elected to the statehouse as a Democrat but switched parties and aligned himself with Trump, has said he believes there were “irregularities” and “violations” and he stands “with those who believe there was election fraud.”
Of four key points on Jones’ campaign platform, three have to do with election management, including stronger voter identification rules and requiring voting in person with limited exceptions.
Jones’ runoff opponent, state Rep. Tim Fleming, has tiptoed around the topic, saying there were “irregularities” in 2020 but adding he’s “not running on conspiracy theories.”
Still, of the seven platform points on his campaign website, four are focused on election management and one says the state should "make it impossible for the Left to cheat in our elections.”
Skepticism of elections flared up recently in California after Trump made a baseless claim that Democrats were cheating to defeat a Republican candidate for governor and another for Los Angeles mayor.
Soon after, the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, led by Trump appointee Bill Essayli, said it was opening fraud investigations related to the elections.
Eric Swalwell resigned from the U.S. House in April after a woman alleged he had sexually assaulted her twice, saying she was too intoxicated to consent to sex in both cases.
The Democrat has denied the accusations, but he dropped out of the race for California governor and resigned from Congress.
That’s what prompted a special primary election Tuesday, when both Republican and Democratic candidates will compete to serve out Swalwell’s term until January. If a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote Tuesday, that candidate wins outright, otherwise the top two contenders will go to a runoff election Aug. 18.
The Democratic candidates, favored to win in the blue district covering several East Bay cities, include Aisha Wahab, a state senator, and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director.
It's a competition between the more progressive Wahab, who's established in California politics, and Hernandez, a local politician who sits closer to the political center. To lower costs, Wahab takes aim at “corporate profiteering” and argues for an expansion to social safety nets. Hernandez focuses on local job growth and supporting small businesses.
Both candidates also ran in the regular primary election for Swalwell’s seat and will face off in the general election in November. Whoever wins that race will take over next year.
This story has been corrected to show Trump wanted to find 11,780, not 11,800, votes.
Cooper reported from Phoenix, Bedayn from Austin, Texas.
FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives for a faith town hall with Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Oct. 23, 2024, in Zebulon, Ga. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
