United MileagePlus can turn points into Red Rocks tickets

United Airlines loyalty members can now use their perks to buy tickets to Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the company said this month, reinforcing data that shows travel and tourism as vital to revenue at the city-owned venue.

United’s MileagePlus members can redeem their miles for concert tickets — not all shows, of course — instead of simply sending them out of state on other flights. The deal, announced Thursday, pegs Denver International Airport’s largest carrier as Red Rock’s official airline sponsor. A minimum of 11,000 points is necessary to request tickets for a pair of attendees.

Having an airline sponsor makes sense for the historic amphitheater: the record attendance that Red Rocks saw last year was driven in part by a crush of out-of-state visitors. They made up about half of all the 1.4 million attendees, and spent an estimated $305 million in the Denver metro area before and after concerts — out of a total $717 million from all Red Rocks visitors.

On most nights this season, about 25% of the audience there will be from out of town, operator Denver Arts & Venues has told The Denver Post.

A recent AAA Travel and Bread Financial survey also found that younger music fans are helping drive the overall surge in concert-season travel, especially at Red Rocks. Three in five Gen Z and Millennial-aged respondents said they’ve traveled or plan to travel in a 12-month period to events more than 50 miles from home, such as concerts, comedy shows and sporting events.

“This compares to just 43% of Gen X and just 27% of Baby Boomers,” according to AAA.

Artists themselves can also influence Gen Z’s travel habits, as one in five travelers (20%) have traveled or plan to travel to a Taylor Swift concert, according to AAA. One-off and rare Red Rocks visits fall neatly into that category, with shows like Arcade Fire’s only 20th anniversary “Funeral” performance in North America this year taking place at Red Rocks.