Want a festival-like experience without dropping a bag on resell tickets and traveling to rural Michigan? Want to return to the comfort of your own bed by the end of the night?
Denver isn’t lacking in concerts (the frat-bro DJs are alive and well). But Archetype V2 offers a new way to experience live music.
Archetype V2 is a one-night immersive event merging Denver’s art and music worlds, using visual art, spatial design and unique sound to redesign a typical concert into something more intentional. Held on June 21 at Mission Ballroom, Archetype returns for its second iteration.
The event begins with a pre-show gallery experience featuring DJs Govinda and Foxtail. Guests then navigate through live paintings, VJ performances, and atmospheric downtempo music as the event transitions to the main stage featuring music by Emancipator, Duffrey, kLLsMTH and Somatoast. Afterward, the night returns to the gallery for an afterparty and some ethereal bass by Smigonaut and Ferrofluid.
The bar is open the whole time, don’t worry.
“Music and art are two of the oldest forms of how people build culture,” said Peter Westermann, artist and founder of Threyda, the creative mind behind Archetype.
They’ve always been linked, but yet it’s rare to have them come together in a normal concert venue, he said. It’s a format both music festivals and Westermann have figured out.
Combining art and music is an inherent part of creative culture, says Westermann. Those moments are sprinkled throughout history, like The Grateful Dead and poster artist Rick Griffin, or The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol.
Westermann spent his career in the intersection between art and music. He started Threyda as a “record label for visual artists,” and it has blossomed into a multidisciplinary experiment with “creative research.”
Music and art impact people in fundamentally different ways, Westermann noted.
“Music paints how we experience time,” Westermann said. “It’s something you experience with other people and it’s something that takes over and envelops you, whereas art is a very personal experience. It’s something that takes focus.”
Experiencing them together breeds something new.
“It gives people a chance to put together the different parts of their brain,” he said.
Unlike a traditional concert where attention is focused on one thing, Archetype V2 prioritizes choice and movement. The idea was to bring together the best parts of a small gathering into a bigger concert experience, said Westermann.
Adding art, he said, “helps scale up the fun, engaging feeling of a small show into a much bigger experience for people.”
The concept of an immersive, cross-media event isn’t new. However, executing such a large one is challenging. Finding the time, venue and resources can be difficult.
“I would say a lot of people have tried this format,” Westermann said. “Typically there’s not enough room to do it the way that people would like to see it.”
The stars aligned for Archetype to use Mission Ballroom and the adjacent AEG regional headquarters building. The gallery will happen at the headquarters’ main floor, making it one of the first times the space has been used for artist-driven events.
Westermann compared the experience to seeing Avatar in 3-D for the first time. The familiar transforms into something fully immersive.
Archetype, a word coined by psychologist Carl Jung, felt like the perfect word to describe the event, said Westermann. By definition, “an archetype is a recurring symbolic element that transcends cultures and carries universal meanings within the human experience.”
“It’s like the different root formats for how we come to know things,” he said. “I called it archetype because I wanted to show people this is a format that we all kind of understand – that’s the natural root way of people experiencing culture.”
There’s also a psychological component to the format.
“Art has an intention to it,” he said. Building an intentional space can foster a sense of comfort and safety, especially in spaces that can feel crowded or overwhelming.
For some, the art offers a way to step back from the noise and intensity into a more relaxed atmosphere.
Archetype is the yin and yang of the concert world, offering a harmonious balance between the energy of live music and the solace found in an art exhibition.
Sat, June 21
Art Experience: 4:30 PM – 7 PM @ 4180 Wynkoop, Denver, CO (zip)
Mission Ballroom: 7:30 PM – 11:30 PM
Afterparty: 12 AM – 2 AM (Tickets sold separately)
GA Tickets I Afterparty Tickets
Event Description
A Summer Solstice celebration in Denver you won’t forget. The night begins at the gallery – an intimate pre-show art opening at 4180 Wynkoop featuring world-class visionary art, live music, and a curated market. Then the full production at Mission Ballroom.
Then an exclusive late-night afterparty for the most dedicated in the room, all on the longest day of the year in the Mile High City.
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