Boulder’s Roots Music Festival returns as Tulagi, with ambitions far beyond music

Most music festivals unveil a new name with a press release. Boulder’s newest festival did it through a nine-part email series chronicling an unusually elaborate process that combined AI-generated suggestions, internal debate and a survey of 76 people. 

One finalist was Takeover, the name favored by Dan Caruso, the festival’s principal financial backer. Human reviewers rejected it overwhelmingly. As the festival’s own promotional material put it, “the word reads as hostile to most people – corporate-raider hostile, military hostile, the-wrong-side-of-a-zoning-fight hostile.”

The process eventually arrived at Tulagi, an homage to the famed University Hill music venue that operated from 1948 to 2003. The name reaches into Boulder’s musical past, even as the festival sets its sights on a much bigger future. 

From Aug. 27-30, Tulagi will bring more than 200 acts to venues across downtown Boulder. Headliners include Big Head Todd and the Monsters and Everclear. The festival is the renamed successor to last year’s Roots Music Festival, a charitable joint venture between the local nonprofit Roots Music Project and Caruso Ventures. This year, Roots Music Project is no longer involved. Tulagi is presented by Caruso Ventures, the Caruso Foundation and Bear Roots, a nonprofit founded by Caruso to manage the event. 

Caruso co-founded Zayo Group, the telecommunications company that was taken private in 2020 in a deal valued at $14.3 billion, and now invests in technology startups through Caruso Ventures. He has also been active in local politics through Engage Boulder, which in 2025 opposed council incumbents endorsed by Boulder Progressives.

Caruso wants Tulagi to complement the Sundance Film Festival, put Boulder back on the national music map and eventually make South by Southwest (SXSW) “look over their shoulder.” Local music advocates welcome the attention and money flowing to artists. They are less certain about who will shape the festival as it grows and whether Boulder’s musicians will remain at its center. 

From Roots Music Festival to Tulagi

When the inaugural Roots Music Festival filled downtown venues in October 2025, some local music supporters saw it as a long-awaited chance to showcase Boulder’s music community. 

“For Roots to do something so ambitious on a street that has deserved a music festival for so many years, that was the great big hope,” said Kenny Vasko, co-owner of Dog House Music Studios in Lafayette. “It was like, oh my gosh, we finally get to shine a light on downtown Boulder and fill all of these areas with music for one special weekend.”

Caruso Ventures joined the festival about two months before its launch. The connection began with Sundance. The Caruso Foundation had contributed to Boulder’s successful bid for the film festival by underwriting the Storytellers At The Edge showcase. Caruso began considering how the infrastructure built around Sundance might support other cultural events throughout the year. 

“We’re like, man, we’re really going to be building out a lot of infrastructure here in Boulder, and Boulder’s going to get more attention as a place for culture and the arts,” Caruso said. 

The partner he found was Roots Music Project, a nonprofit founded in 2019 to provide musicians with paid performances, professional development and other support. The festival was its largest undertaking to date. Caruso Ventures brought a late infusion of money and, Vasko said, the assurance that musicians would be paid. 

“The fact that it got a financial boost later in the game was amazing,” Vasko said. 

But by the festival’s second year, the partnership between Roots Music Project and Caruso’s organizations had ended. 

“They decided to split off,” Caruso said. “I think they want to do something that will be their own thing.”

Dave Kennedy, executive director and founder of Roots Music Project, declined to comment. 

After the split, the festival needed a new name. Caruso said Tulagi is meant to keep the festival tied to Boulder as it grows. 

“This will help put Boulder back on the map as being a major music place in geography, like it used to be in the 70s and 80s. The Tulagi name helps draw that connection,” Caruso said. 

“Tulagi signals a real local Boulder identity to a lot of people,” said Indra Raj, music director of KGNU Community Radio. “I think hopefully that is the spirit of the festival: that local Boulder flavor will always be in it, supporting local artists.” 

Vasko said the festival lineup represents a “who’s who” of local acts.

A Boulder answer to SXSW

The festival’s musical core remains largely unchanged: hundreds of musicians performing in more than a dozen venues. But the programming around those performances has expanded.  

Tulagi will also feature Bold Conversations That Matter, a curated discussion series, and the Founders Experience, a VIP program for major donors and supporters. Caruso said he wants Tulagi to function as a gathering place as well as a music festival. 

“We want to make this into an event where lots of people develop relationships, friendships as well as maybe business relationships, innovation relationships,” Caruso said.

That mixture of performances, conversations and networking helps explain why Caruso repeatedly invokes SXSW. 

“I want South by Southwest to be looking over their shoulder and saying, ‘What is that Tulagi thing they’re doing in Boulder?’” Caruso said.  “I would also like to see us become a worthy complement to Sundance.” 

Raj was less certain about the Sundance comparison. She wanted to know what, exactly, Tulagi would be complementing.

“What does it mean to be a complement to Sundance?” Raj said. “At its root, Sundance is meant to support independent film and underrepresented art. I really like that. So if Tulagi complements that part of the festival, that seems pretty interesting to me. But I don’t know.”

For Vasko, the comparison raised a different concern. Sundance’s arrival in Boulder has already prompted questions about affordability and access.

“I’m not the only one who got nervous seeing the words ‘South by Southwest’ in an email that also mentioned Sundance,” said Vasko.

There are historical parallels. Austin and Boulder are university towns with countercultural histories and large technology sectors. When SXSW began in 1987, it was a four-day music festival featuring 177 acts at 15 clubs around downtown Austin, according to Texas Monthly. In scale, Tulagi resembles that early version, with more than 200 acts performing across downtown Boulder.

SXSW later grew to include film and innovation, drawing national attention and money to Austin. Monocle Magazine has called it “the most effective urban-branding exercise in American life.” That growth is part of what appeals to Caruso and what makes some local music advocates uneasy.

Tulagi arrives as Boulder is already debating what kind of city it wants to become. 

“I’m sensing there is a fight for the identity of Pearl Street,” Vasko said. “What will it be known for over the next 10 or 20 years, as opposed to how people remember it from the 70s or the 90s.” 

“Boulder as a city is having a real reckoning of ‘who are we,’” Raj echoed. “It’s been happening slowly for years, but now with this big festival coming with a lot of money and notoriety and famous people and glitz and glam, I’m hearing a lot of, ‘do we want that? What is that going to do to our local ecosystem? Are we losing the soul of Boulder?’”

For Raj, the test will be whether Tulagi’s local character survives its growth. 

“My hope … is that the local flavor of the festival doesn’t get lost,” said Raj. “It’s still there in abundance this year, and I hope that, going into future years of the festival, that feeling can remain alive.” 

Money and the local music economy

Caruso’s plans are supported by a level of private giving rarely available to local music organizations. 

“We’ve gotten huge support from the donor crowd,” Caruso said. “I think we’re going to get to $1 million in donations … That gives us the ability to have more talent, more venues, more variety and feel comfortable that we’re going to be in a good shape going into next year as well.” 

“It does take money to run these festivals,” Vasko said. “That’s why everyone tries to hit sponsorships so hard and to get grants. The money has to come from somewhere.” 

What matters, he said, is where that money goes. 

“My hope is that the focus stays local and it’s something that infuses money into the creative economy of the Boulder metro area for years to come,” Vasko said. 

For the complete lineup and performance schedule, visit the Tulagi festival website.