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Belly Up again books biggest EDM stars for holiday week

The Chainsmokers’ Drew Taggart at Belly Up during a surprise concert in June 2018. (Michael Goldberg/Belly Up)

Belly Up Aspen is burnishing its reputation as an electronic music epicenter with a Christmas-New Year’s lineup that rivals the industry-leading clubs in Las Vegas and Ibiza and the like.

The 450-capacity music club will welcome sold-out crowds of fully vaccinated revelers for a starry EDM lineup during Aspen’s glitziest and busiest winter period.

The stretch of shows opened with Dillon Francis on Dec. 23 and peaks with Diplo’s New Year’s Eve set. Both DJ/producers have become regulars at Belly Up around the holidays since they played back-to-back nights at the club during this week in 2017.



The hitmakers went snowboarding together, hit the town and Aspen earned a place on both of their holiday calendars in years to come.

“It was probably one of the most memorable trips,” Francis told the Aspen Times during a later stop. “Aspen is just the best.”




The week also includes two sold-out nights with ZHU (Dec. 25 and 26), the Grammy-nominated house DJ in the midst of his “Dreamland” tour supporting the quarantine-made album of the same name. He’ll be spending New Year’s on stage at Decadence Colorado in Denver.

Zhu will play Belly Up Dec. 25 and 26. (Courtesy photo)

Diplo’s New Year’s Eve set marks just the third time in its 16-year history that Belly Up has booked an electronic act for its New Year’s Eve show (Flume headlined 2019; the French duo Justice in 2018; the club was dark for New Year’s 2020 due to COVID-19 public health restrictions)

While DJs have reigned New Year’s week in recent years, Belly Up remains genre agnostic, aiming to book the hottest acts of the moment. As the club’s David Goldberg has put it, “we’re just trying to book the biggest shows, period. It doesn’t matter to us whether it’s electronic — we’re looking for the best and the coolest.”

Diplo will headline Belly Up on New Year’s Eve. (Courtesy photo)

The English bass and house duo Gorgon City headlines on Dec. 27 ($90-$195) on a run of breakout U.S. shows that included the Midway in Chicago, Mission Ballroom in Denver and Shrine Expo Hall in Denver. They’re set to make their Red Rocks Amphitheatre debut in April 2022.

Belly Up regulars The Chainsmokers are back for sold-out sets on Dec. 28 and 29, followed by a break in the EDM action on Dec. 30 with the late-1990s chart-topping rock band Third Eye Blind.

And after the New Year, in what has become an annual tradition, the eclectic producer Emancipator will headline Jan. 2 ($50-$60) for what in year’s past has become an informal locals’ post-holiday party as the New Year’s week crowds exit Aspen.

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