Alpine Valley Tickets

With the opening of its gates in the summer of 1975, Alpine Valley Music Theatre showed Wisconsin concertgoers how to truly enjoy a performance outdoors. The kids dancing on the Alpine Valley grass to Phish and the Dave Matthews Band attend shows under conditions similar to what their parents encountered there a generation earlier for bands like the Eagles, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Starship. At that time, Alpine Valley had just 7,500 pavilion seats, with general admission lawn seating being added little by little. Current capacity of Alpine Valley reaches upwards of 37,000 people, with just under 30,000 of those Alpine Valley fans occupying spots on the now famous sprawling grass hill.

With its location 40 minutes southwest of Milwaukee in the rural town of East Troy, traffic patterns clearly identify if there is a show at Alpine. Due to the traffic situation, the town of East Troy only allows Alpine Valley to host concerts on the weekend. The venue sits nearly in the middle of Milwaukee and metropolitan Chicago, drawing live music fans from both markets.

In the last 31 years, countless popular acts have performed on the Alpine Valley stage. Bands like the aforementioned Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band and Phish consider Alpine Valley one of their favorite venues to play and have returned for performances year after year after year. On the audience side, many concertgoers consider Alpine Valley one of their favorite places to watch an outdoor summertime concert. In the case of the Grateful Dead, the band use to play multiple show 'runs' at Alpine. Many Dead fans have fond memories of the days when Alpine Valley allowed "Deadheads" to pitch tents and camp right in the parking lot overnight.

One band scheduled for a return visit to Alpine Valley in 2006, Motley Crue, filmed their video for Same Ol' Situation at Alpine Valley in 1990. The Dead DVD Downhill From Here was recorded in 1989 at Alpine Valley. After the death of Jerry Garcia, the remaining members of the band chose Alpine Valley as the spot of their much anticipated reunion concerts in 2002, labeled the Terrapin Station Family Reunion. Initially promoters were denied a license, as authorities were concerned if they could handle the potential 200,000 fans flocking to Alpine Valley. In the end, the show went on with thousands of fans listening from the parking lot to the two sold-out concerts. Other artists like perennial favorite Jimmy Buffett have performed at Alpine numerous years in a row, making Alpine Valley a must-attend pilgrimage for Parrotheads nationwide.

Alpine Valley does have a tie to a very unfortunate tragedy that serves as a black mark in the history of music. In the summer of 1990, a massive concert tour made its way around the country with a bill that included Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble (who recently had proudly cleaned up after years of alcohol and drug abuse) and Robert Cray. After the second of two shows at Alpine Valley in late August, the helicopter Stevie Ray Vaughan was on crashed into the side of a hill just outside East Troy shortly after the end of the show, killing everyone aboard instantly. A pilot and a few crew members, including a member of Eric Clapton's management team, also perished in the wreck.

Alpine Valley hosted the last song Stevie Ray Vaughn ever performed. It was an encore version of 'Sweet Home Chicago' that included Stevie Ray trading solos with Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and his brother Jimmie Vaughn. According to fans present, he never sounded better.