Denver could ask voters to add a 5-15% tax on your sports and concert tickets
Jun 29, 2026, 4:09 PM
That Broncos ticket you already can’t afford? It might be about to get more expensive…
Two Denver City Council members are proposing a tiered tax on tickets at large private venues that could land on the November 2026 ballot — and the mayor and every major pro sports team in the city are already pushing back.
Councilmembers Sarah Parady and Flor Alvidrez presented the proposal this week. Under the current structure, original ticket sales at privately owned venues with more than 1,000 seats would be taxed on three tiers: 5% on tickets under $100, 10% on tickets between $100 and $250, and 15% on tickets over $250. The tax would not apply to resale tickets. City-owned venues, including Red Rocks Amphitheatre, are exempt — Red Rocks already carries an existing 10% seat tax. The proposal is projected to generate an estimated $30 million per year.
That money would fund two programs the city has struggled to pay for: the Safe Routes to School Action Plan, adopted in 2021 to build safer walking and biking infrastructure for students, and Denver Moves Everyone, the city’s long-term transportation plan. Alvidrez pointed to the city’s traffic death toll — 93 people died in traffic collisions in Denver in 2025, a record high since 2013 — as justification for the revenue source.
The opposition is loud and unified. Mayor Mike Johnston’s office is against the proposal, and every major Denver pro sports franchise has pushed back, citing concerns about the impact on fans, the live events industry and local workers who depend on event-night business. The Reddit response was equally blunt — one commenter wrote it was “like they had a brainstorming session to answer the question, ‘How can we make going to concerts even worse?'”
To be clear, nothing has been approved yet. The measure would still need to be placed on the November ballot by the City Council and then approved by Denver voters. But if you’ve been holding off on buying tickets to anything at Ball Arena, Empower Field or Coors Field, you might want to lock in before the ballot hits.
