History and culture - Front Range
A whole city's stages gathered under one downtown roof
The Denver Performing Arts Complex packs more than a dozen venues and four resident companies onto twelve downtown acres under an 80-foot glass canopy.
Published June 10, 2026 - Last verified June 15, 2026
Plan a night out downtown and you don’t have to choose between the symphony, the ballet, a touring Broadway show, and the opera. They all live within a few steps of each other. The Denver Performing Arts Complex stretches across roughly twelve acres in the middle of the city, with more than a dozen venues tied together under an 80-foot glass canopy. The arts complex calls itself the second-largest performing arts destination under one roof in the country.
Four companies share the campus: the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Colorado Symphony, Colorado Ballet, and Opera Colorado. The story started in 1972, when lawyer Donald Seawell sketched the idea on a curb across from the city’s old 1908 auditorium. Boettcher Concert Hall opened in 1978, the Bonfils theatres in 1979, and the big Buell Theatre in 1991.
Part of why it all keeps running sits in your receipts: the regional culture tax we describe in our SCFD note helps fund these very companies. You can wander the glass-roofed galleria between shows for free. For show calendars and venue maps, start at the official site, artscomplex.com.