St. George • This summer, the show will not go on at the O.C. Tanner Amphitheater that stands at the threshold of Zion National Park.
Damage from the June 29 flood – mainly to the facility’s parking area – will keep the theater closed for the next six to eight months, according to officials with Dixie State University, which operates the facility as a satellite campus. Damage is not as much to the stage and seating areas as it is the parking area and road leading up to the facility. What was the upper parking lot is not not much more than a small strip of asphalt overlooking a cliff. The drainage system was also destroyed.
“It is going to take some qualified people and heavy machinery to fix this,” Josh Thayn, Dixie State’s executive director of events services and risk management, said.
The stage and seating areas had more superficial damage, Thayn said, with drywall cracks and damaged carpet. But the waterline showing how high the floodwaters were can be seen reaching the doorknobs.
The closure is forcing the moving of events scheduled for the theater this summer to facilities on the main Dixie State campus in St. George, albeit without the dramatic Zion backdrop.
Organizers for one of the larger amphitheater events – the Zion Canyon Music Festival – said in a statement on Facebook that their event has been outright canceled, though Dixie State officials still said they are trying to reschedule every event on the Tanner Amphitheater schedule.
It would be the second-straight year the festival has been canceled after having been suspended in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are so disappointed. First Covid, now this?” the statement reads.
Organizers with the festival did not respond to requests for comment from St. George News.
Among the musical acts scrambling to find a new venue is The National Parks, the Utah-based folk-rock band. The group had scheduled to throw a daylong music festival, called Superbloom, at the amphitheater on October 9.
A spokesman for the band’s booking agency said in a statement Tuesday that “we are very close to finalizing our new site for Superbloom, which will be announced very soon.”
The National Parks planned to hold the inaugural Superbloom festival in 2020, but had to postpone and ultimately cancel the event because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Utah Symphony was scheduled to perform at the amphitheater on Aug. 14, the last of five dates on its “Forever Mighty” concert tour of Utah outdoor venues. A new location has yet to be announced.
According to the amphitheater’s website, two performances by the St. George-based Polynesian dance group Siva Pasefika, set for this Friday and July 30, have been moved to Cox Auditorium on the Dixie State University campus. So has a July 28 concert by the Christian pop group For King & Country.
— Salt Lake Tribune reporter Sean P. Means contributed to this article.
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.
