We were lucky to catch up with Shannon Williams recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shannon , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I have been producing Burlesque shows for almost 15 years. Prior to that, I was always involved in support of artists in some way. I met my current wife at the hair salon that I work at, she is the manager. I realized upon meeting her that I had seen her perform burlesque before in Denver, she’s a bit of a local legend. I realized that she was too demure and shy to boast about her performance success. I then dubbed myself her ‘manager’ and we began producing shows together. She had a long running show that happened on a weekly basis ever Monday night and I joined in on helping putting that show together and kept it running until the bar closed shortly after the pandemic started. In the meantime and since then, we produce small scale shows as Crimson Burlesque. We have friends that were on the production team of at that point, the 6th annual Colorado Burlesque Festival. In 2016, all of the previous producers bowed out and the two of them approached my wife Kitty and I to pass the torch of the festival to us, We agreed and in 2018 held the festival at a new venue and under new ownership. Kitty and myself asked a peer producer and friend to join us and outside of not being able to have the festival in 2020, we just completed our 6th year of production and the 12th annual Colorado Burlesque Festival.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

(See previous) As Crimson Burlesque, we offer performance opportunities to all types of performers in a valued and safe environment. As The Colorado Burlesque Festival, we do the same but also very concerned with holding space for all body and act types, skin color, gender and identity. We pride ourselves on executing a successful event year after year and holding a safe showcase for our chosen performers to showcase their art form.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Staying active on all fronts and keeping up with current trends to reach the largest audience on.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We hired on an associate producer in 2019 and 2022 respectfully. In 2019, we were presented with a challenge at showtime with this associate as they created an awkward confrontation with a previous festival producer and a local cabaret owner. We had to let her go after the festival. Then in 2022, we had an associate producer that the staff of the venue had a conflict with during the show so we chose to not continue our partnership with her to maintain the relationship with venue. SO moving forward until present, we have decided to run our event with just the original production team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thecoloradoburlesquefestival.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coloradoburlesquefest
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coloradoburlesquefestival

Image Credits

Dave Wood Photography

Jordana Sturaro