Where do Denver wedding cocktail hours usually happen?

In the pause between ceremony and reception: hotel lobbies and mezzanines downtown, gallery floors in the Santa Fe arts district, garden terraces at the Botanic Gardens, and the parlors of Capitol Hill mansions. A duo fits all of them; the footprint is eight feet by six.

What does load-in look like at a downtown Denver venue?

Small and early. A duo loads in within 60 minutes through the service entrance, plays on an 8 by 6 foot footprint, and runs on one dedicated 20-amp circuit. We settle dock windows and freight elevators with the venue before the day, so no cases cross the lobby.

Is there a travel charge for a Denver wedding?

No. Denver is our home market, so a metro date carries no travel line. Travel appears on a quote only outside the metro: Boulder and Colorado Springs are a short Front Range line, and mountain venues carry their own line.

Can the duo play an outdoor cocktail hour at a Denver garden venue?

Yes, on a covered, level and dry performance area with power run to it. Denver evenings drop fast after sunset, so the weather call and the move-indoors time are written before the day. Garden terraces with a pavilion make this the easiest outdoor booking on the calendar.

Is a duo enough for a cocktail hour at a Denver hotel?

Yes, for the guest counts these buildings hold at cocktail hour. Two musicians hold 65 to 72 dBA across a lobby lounge or a mezzanine, and the hour rarely gets the main floor anyway because the main floor is being set for dinner. The trio is the size to book when the crowd spreads across a full ballroom.

Can guests talk over live music on a Denver garden terrace?

Yes, and outdoors makes it easier. Open air gives nothing back, so the level guests hear is the level the musicians set, and that's a volume two people who have just met can talk across. What outdoors does need is a covered, level and dry performance area with power run to it.

Denver weddings

Live music for cocktail hour at a Denver wedding.

The ceremony ends, the couple leaves for photographs, and the guests find a first drink in a hotel lobby, on a gallery floor or on a garden terrace, which is where this city holds its cocktail hours. A jazz duo plays that hour at a volume guests can talk across.

Denver is our home market, so a metro date carries no travel line: the fee for the music is the whole figure. What should play, how long the hour runs and whether a duo or a DJ should hold it are answered on the cocktail hour page. This page is the Denver part: where the hour happens, and what load-in, parking and power look like once it does. The ceremony before it and the reception after it route from the weddings page.

Check a Date See Pricing

The same duo can keep playing through dinner on the same contract, with one load-in and one sound check.

Hear it

The cocktail hour sound.

Guitar and upright bass on a standard, at the volume a Denver cocktail hour talks across.

Where the hour happens

Hotel mezzanines, gallery floors, garden terraces.

The cocktail hour rarely gets the main floor, because the main floor is being set for dinner. It gets the lobby, the mezzanine, the gallery, the terrace. A duo is built for exactly those: an 8 by 6 foot footprint, one power circuit, and a volume that suits marble as well as open air.

The grand hotels: Downtown weddings keep the hour a floor from dinner, in the lobby lounge or on the mezzanine. The Brown Palace runs it under the atrium lobby, and at the Four Seasons and The Oxford it lands in spaces where a banquet team is already working a tight service window. A duo that is set and sound-checked before guests arrive fits the way these buildings run.
The galleries: Space Gallery on Santa Fe Drive is the pattern: concrete floors, white walls, art on every one of them. Hard surfaces carry sound further than carpet and drapery do, so the duo starts the hour lower than it would in a ballroom and lets the walls do the projecting.
The gardens: Denver Botanic Gardens puts the hour outdoors, and outdoors has rules of its own: a covered, level and dry performance area, power run to it, and a move-indoors call written before the day. Denver evenings drop fast after sunset, and instruments and electronics both stop behaving in the cold. Open air also hands nothing back: a guitar reads close and detailed near the terrace rail and thins across a lawn, where a trio's upright bass carries to the far edge of the crowd. The cocktail hour page covers both.
The mansions and clubs: Grant-Humphreys Mansion and the University Club of Denver spread the crowd across parlors and landings rather than one open floor. The duo sets up within sight of the bar, where the crowd pools, and the far parlors stay usable for conversation.
The industrial floors: Mile High Station holds ceremony, cocktails and dinner under one roof, which makes it the venue flip in its purest form: the hour runs at one end of the building while the floor turns at the other, and the duo is what keeps the turn from reading as a delay.

Nearly every Denver cocktail hour lands in one of these five kinds of venue, which is why the venue name is the first thing we ask for. Tell us the venue and the date, and we'll come back with a recommendation and a price for that hour.

Load-in, parking and power downtown

A duo is one van and one trip. Load-in runs 60 minutes, strike runs 45, and both go through the service entrance where the venue has one, with dock windows and freight elevators settled with the banquet office before the day. Downtown, the parking question gets answered at contract: a hotel dock has a window, a gallery has a curb, and either way the van is gone before guests arrive.

Where ceremony and reception share a building, we set up and sound-check before guests are seated, so no cases move through a landing full of people holding drinks. The duo plays the hour from its own corner while the main floor turns from ceremony rows to dinner tables.

Power for a duo is one dedicated 20-amp circuit, and dedicated is the word that matters: sharing with catering warmers is the most common cause of trouble at load-in. In a mansion or a gallery we ask the circuit question at contract. Footprints, inputs and circuits for every size are on the technical page, and timing against the caterer and the dinner call is on the run of show page, with the rest of the working documents on the planners resources page.

Denver questions

The general question set, what plays, how long, duo or DJ, is on the cocktail hour page. The same duo plays private parties across the city.

Where do Denver wedding cocktail hours usually happen?: In the pause between ceremony and reception: hotel lobbies and mezzanines downtown, gallery floors in the Santa Fe arts district, garden terraces at the Botanic Gardens, and the parlors of Capitol Hill mansions. A duo fits all of them; the footprint is eight feet by six.
What does load-in look like at a downtown Denver venue?: Small and early. A duo loads in within 60 minutes through the service entrance, plays on an 8 by 6 foot footprint, and runs on one dedicated 20-amp circuit. We settle dock windows and freight elevators with the venue before the day, so no cases cross the lobby.
Is there a travel charge for a Denver wedding?: No. Denver is our home market, so a metro date carries no travel line. Travel appears on a quote only outside the metro: Boulder and Colorado Springs are a short Front Range line, and mountain venues carry their own line.
Can the duo play an outdoor cocktail hour at a Denver garden venue?: Yes, on a covered, level and dry performance area with power run to it. Denver evenings drop fast after sunset, so the weather call and the move-indoors time are written before the day. Garden terraces with a pavilion make this the easiest outdoor booking on the calendar.
Is a duo enough for a cocktail hour at a Denver hotel?: Yes, for the guest counts these buildings hold at cocktail hour. Two musicians hold 65 to 72 dBA across a lobby lounge or a mezzanine, and the hour rarely gets the main floor anyway because the main floor is being set for dinner. The trio is the size to book when the crowd spreads across a full ballroom.
Can guests talk over live music on a Denver garden terrace?: Yes, and outdoors makes it easier. Open air gives nothing back, so the level guests hear is the level the musicians set, and that's a volume two people who have just met can talk across. What outdoors does need is a covered, level and dry performance area with power run to it.

Tell us the Denver venue and the date, and we'll plan the cocktail hour with you.

Live music for your event, from a solo musician to a full band, with sound support that’s the right size for the venue and a personal contact for the night.

Check a Date

Send us the date and the venue, and we’ll come back with a recommendation and a price for your night. What live music costs in this market is on the pricing page.