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King Concerts
The summit of Snow King might be the best concert venue in the country.
// By Samantha Simma and Lila Edythe
// photography by Bradly J. Boner
Dylan Gossett, the Black Keys, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Shaggy, Too $hort, and Sofi Tukker.
The first concerts on the summit of Snow King Mountain were held in July of 2022. Duane Betts & His Friends played two shows. The only bathrooms were porta-potties, speakers were suspended from forklifts, and the stage was barely big enough for the six musicians. If you wanted to sit, it was on disturbed dirt. Snow King’s development of its summit area was a work in progress. “The first year was basically sticks and rocks, and it was still great,” says Juniper Lopez, who estimates that, including Duane Betts in 2022, she’s been to about 20 concerts on the summit of Snow King. “Then they rolled out the grass. Then a real stage. Then safety tents. It feels like they’re building an incredible product.”
In 2025, there were 15 King Concerts, which together featured 30 bands, including Modest Mouse, Primus, and Thievery Corporation. About 2,500 locals and visitors—the venue’s capacity—attended each show, hopping into an eight-passenger gondola cabin at the ski resort’s base area to be whisked 1,500 feet up to the summit. Disembarking five minutes later at 7,808-feet, they settled in with family and friends on blankets and in camp chairs on a purpose-designed sloping lawn. Hungry or thirsty? There was a collection of food trucks to choose from. Tired of looking at the stage itself? Focus on the one of the valley’s best views of the Tetons that is its backdrop. A couple of years ago, as Cypress Hill was starting its first set and the Tetons were pink with alpenglow, a paraglider was doing loops a couple of hundred feet above the stage. “The King is probably the most stunning concert venue in the U.S.,” says Julie Weinberger, who estimates she’s been to about one dozen concerts there, including (with her father who flew out from New York) Dark Star Orchestra three nights in a row in 2023.
This summer the schedule has more shows than in 2025—20 and counting (Snow King says it might add one or two more)—and is even more diverse, including De La Soul, Dylan Gossett, the Black Keys, Trampled by Turtles, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Shaggy, Too $hort, E-40, and Sofi Tukker. Along with additional shows, Snow King is adding eight more gondola cars to address past concert goers’ biggest complaint—that the wait to get down after concerts could be more than an hour. “This should get people down 30 percent faster than last year,” says Ryan Stanley, Snow King Mountain’s general manager.
“The variety of shows is just so eclectic,” says Lopez, who has attended concerts with her kids (ages 8 and 12), husband, and friends. “It’d be hard to find a genre that isn’t represented. I don’t think they miss anything.” Stanley, who confesses to most looking forward to the Black Keys, Shaggy, and Too $hort himself, says, “In 2025 we had the biggest lineup of nationally touring bands this valley has ever seen, and 2026 is even bigger.” Also, this summer the shows are more spread out between weekends and weekdays. “We’ve had some weekday shows in the past, but there are even more this summer,” Stanley says.
Stanley’s hope is that Snow King becomes as iconic of a concert venue as Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the world-renowned, naturally formed open-air venue outside of Denver famous for its perfect acoustics, stunning scenery, and the massive 300-foot sandstone monoliths that surround it. Stanley says the goal is for Snow King to draw the same level of nationally touring acts as Red Rocks.
Because of its location, Snow King’s concert season can never be as long as Red Rocks’s. Outdoors at almost 8,000 feet on top of a mountain in Jackson, Wyoming, which gets about 10 feet of snow annually, weather dictates that King Concerts only be held between early June and late August. Any earlier, and the winter’s snow might not yet have melted. Any later, and musicians might freeze in an early-season snowstorm. The King is already pulling in many of the same acts as Red Rocks, though: Sofi Tukker, Trampled by Turtles, and the Black Keys have all performed there.
Because the King is still a relatively new venue, Stanley thinks word is only just starting to get out among musicians about how unique it is. “I think most [musicians] don’t know what it’s like here until they get here,” he says. “But then they’re doing selfies with their families behind the stage with the Tetons in the background. I’m pretty sure they don’t do that at most other venues.” Stanley also says that quite a few of the bands that have already played at Snow King reach out about coming back. “That’s a positive indicator that they enjoy the experience, too.”
While Snow King might not yet have iconic concert venue status, it already might be the superior concert experience. “Red Rocks is 10,000 people, which is a very different experience than 2,500 people, and at Snow King you can go right to the front of the stage,” Stanley says. “Snow King is a general admission experience where the most stoked people are in the front row and there is no one telling them where they can stand, which, I think, for that reason, makes it a lot cooler of a venue.” Weinberger, who’s gone to about the same number conerts at Red Rocks as at the King (about 12), agrees. “It’s really nice to just put your blanket or chair anywhere,” she says. Also, “Red Rocks is much bigger and not in my backyard.”
Stanley says, “I heard a comment from a longtime local resident who said there are things that come along once every decade or two that really make life in this valley even better. The King Concert experience has been one of those changes.”
