Smiths will partner with Live Nation to build 6,000-seat downtown music venue
We hear a lot about the “sports,” but Smith Entertainment Group (SEG) has announced plans that will beef up the “entertainment” part of the announced $3 billion scheme to create a sports and entertainment district in downtown Salt Lake City.
Smith Entertainment, parent company of Delta Center, NBA franchise Utah Jazz and NHL team Utah Mammoth, has partnered with global entertainment company Live Nation to announce a new indoor music venue to be built in the area between Delta Center and the Salt Palace Convention Center.
SEG said that while Delta Center will remain home to many concerts and other entertainment events for 12,000 to 19,000 attendees, the new venue will serve acts seeking a “best-in-class, mid-size indoor option.” The venue is expected to accommodate concerts, conferences and community and corporate events with 2,000 to 6,000 attendees.
Expected to host 200 events annually, including 100 concerts, the new space is designed to fill a gap in the market and will mark Live Nation’s only purpose-built, large indoor venue in the Salt Lake City area.
The project is part of Live Nation’s expansion of its presence in premier sports and entertainment districts across the U.S. Current venues include the MGM Music Hall at Boston’s Fenway Park, with upcoming projects such as Citizens at The Wylie in Pittsburgh, a downtown Indianapolis venue with Boxcar Development, and a new venue in downtown Atlanta’s Centennial Yards, among other projects.
The venue is the first of many expected major announcements regarding SEG’s plans for the area. The arena announcement was made during a press conference hosted by SEG owners Ryan and Ashley Smith along with Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation.
“We’re proud to partner with Live Nation to bring one of the world’s premier event venues to the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. We have seen the incredible impact hockey has had on downtown, bringing hundreds of thousands of more people to the city and spurring amazing economic growth for downtown businesses,” said Ryan Smith, chairman and CEO of SEG.
“Our goal has always been to bring enormous opportunities to downtown. Once the transformation of Delta Center was underway, partnering with Live Nation on what a world-class concert venue could look like in downtown became a top priority. Not only will it bring the best artists in the world to Utah, but it will also bring a million people downtown to experience Salt Lake City every year. Both SEG and Live Nation will be committing considerable financial investment into the development of this venue. This is the first of many announcements as we continue to work at attracting the best and most influential brands in the world to invest in our state.”
“Utah is a great market for live music, and Smith Entertainment Group is the right partner to help us deliver a world-class venue to fans in Salt Lake City,” said Rapino. “SEG’s incredible vision for the downtown district aligns with our mission to expand access to live music. This venue will be a hub for unforgettable experiences, connecting fans with the artists they love.”
In April, SEG began work on its project to transform Delta Center into a dual-sport venue that can effectively host both the Jazz and Mammoth. Delta Center has been the home of the Jazz since 1991, and the 2024-25 NHL campaign marked its first season as home of the Mammoth. SEG acquired the NHL team formerly known as the Arizona Coyotes in April last year and initially rebranded the franchise as Utah Hockey Club. The permanent Mammoth name was announced this spring.
Although Delta Center underwent minor modifications ahead of the Mammoth’s debut season, it needed a major remodeling to be a better venue for hockey. Last October, the Salt Lake City Council voted in favor of helping to fund the revamp of the arena that began following the Jazz and Mammoth seasons earlier this year.
Rapino credited Ryan Smith for reaching out and getting the ball rolling on the venue. He called the new venue “a rare opportunity,” adding that most of the time, new music venues built near sports arenas are hardly ever in a city’s downtown. He also said that an arena in the 6,000-seat range is in a “sweet spot” for touring artists.
“We wouldn’t have that today,” Rapino said. “We would fly over Salt Lake, as you would call it. It wouldn’t be a market we would play. So this has been open, a great opportunity. We’re thrilled to be part of it.”
Smith said that although the arena’s construction would be a joint venture between SEG and Live Nation, the latter would be the principal operator once the venue began operation.
Neither Smith nor Rapino could pinpoint the new arena’s exact location or what it might look like. Mike Maughan, an executive at SEG, said that there’s no set location and that his company is in the “earAly stages now of identifying architects for [the middle block of the district] and we know that this will be a central component.” Maughan added that portions of the Salt Palace are slated for demolition starting in early 2027 and hinted that it might be a possible location.
Despite the major contributions to the downtown rebuild that have already been earmarked by Salt Lake City, Maughan couldn’t specify how the new concert venue would be funded. “SEG has committed $3 billion to the downtown, and both Live Nation and SEG will be committing substantial funds to this investment as part of this music and entertainment venue.”
“When Ash and I took over and started Smith Entertainment Group with our partners, the idea was hopefully to bring some cool things to Utah in the forms of wins and championships but also everything else that we lift around,” said Ryan Smith. “To watch a couple of these pages unfold — last year, we were sitting here with the announcement of the NHL — the impact of the NHL in Utah, but more specifically in downtown Salt Lake, is something we see every day.”
The new partnerships hope the announced concert arena will be one of those “cool things.”