The Alternative Venue Alliance
The Alternative Venue Alliance, or "AVA", is the current incarnation of a company founded in 1991 for the purposes of booking and enhancing the careers of young artists, and developing new venues. AVA's primary focus is to work with these venues' owners, including institutions, municipalities, and other nontraditional venue owners, to create concert, festival, and other event programming and projects that synchronize the needs and desires of the community with the venue owners’ interests in their assets.
At AVA, we believe in exceptional artists and extraordinary experiences, and to achieve these goals we have developed extensive experience in and understand the artistic, operational, technical and commercial needs of all types of venues. We analyze and innovate each detail that makes a venue function better – whether audience facing or out of sight – aiming to design spaces that inspire and delight while delivering the best in functionality, acoustical excellence, visual quality, and audience comfort.
AVA Presents is a highly regarded and exceedingly experienced company specializing in concert and event planning, production, venue development, and management. Over time, AVA has successfully participated in the identification and negotiation of concert and event venue ownership, management, development, and consulting opportunities, as well as concerts, festivals, and other event ideation. booking, promotion, and production.
Leadership
Jesse Morreale: Founder & CEO, Chief Development Officer
Jesse is a Colorado native and a product of the Auraria Campus, graduating from UCD with a Bachelor of Science in Music and a minor in Business. While in College, Jesse began promoting concerts and festivals full time, eventually growing the business into one of the nation’s largest independent concert promotion companies, producing over a thousand concerts, festivals, and other events per year; locally promoting events at Red Rocks, Ball Arena, Mile High Stadium, and other public venues; and developed, booked, and produced the Denver Botanic Gardens Summer Concert Series beginning in 1999.
Jesse’s long-running concert industry career also includes a tenure as a senior executive for House of Blues, Universal Concerts, and Fey Concert Company.
In addition to managing relationships and promoting events with some of the highest profile artists in the world, from Metallica to Neil Diamond, Pearl Jam to Jerry Seinfeld, Jesse is also an accomplished live venue developer, who developed, booked, and operated his company’s iconic owned Denver venues: the Ogden, Bluebird, and Gothic Theatres. In addition to renovating and owning the theaters in Denver, through his companies Jesse also owned and operated the Royal Oak Music Theater in Detroit, the Colorado Music Hall in Colorado Springs, and the Marquee Theater in Phoenix.
Throughout the many iterations of his professional life, Morreale has overseen and performed the development and implementation of large-scale projects across a wide range of concert, festival, and other entertainment assets, and each project also fulfilled some of his core values: transforming the social and cultural fabric of communities, bringing life and vitality to what would otherwise remain neglected areas, and prompting others to follow his lead.
Meet the team
Collectively, AVA’s team bring decades of experience in producing and overseeing large events, overseeing talent relations, managing booking and logistics, and coordinating talent and stakeholder participation across a wide range of concert, festival, and other entertainment assets.
With over 30 years in business, AVA Presents is one of Colorado’s longest standing, most qualified and experienced concert and festival booking and production companies, with extensive experience and a proven track record of booking and producing concerts, festivals, and events safely and successfully for ourselves and others. While not all members of the team are owners, the team AVA has designated to assign to the Denver Botanic Gardens Summer Concert Series would be comprised of some of the most experienced and talented live event professionals in Colorado.
Shawn Stokes: Production manager
Andrea Furness: Promoter Representative, Artist Relations,
Mauricio Segura: Fire compliance and life safety
Join the team
If you are an experienced live venue or event professional, or have an interest and experience in historic preservation and restoration, feel free to submit your CV and cover letter here.
AVA is also always looking for experienced food and beverage professionals, from bartenders to general managers, line cooks to servers -- if you are interested in advancing your hospitality career, or simply think it would be cool to work at a concert venue, get in touch!