<p>My son is going to the Aspen Music Festival this summer, flying into from Boston Denver on June 20 with a good flight case. </p>
<p>Based on assurances from Colorado Mountain Express (CME ground transportation) that they would transport my son and his bass between Denver and Aspen for two fares I purchased a roundtrip flight with SouthWest. (CME is the ground transport service recommended by the festival itself.) However CME has since apologized saying they made an error and said they would require 8 fares for this transport. (I gave them all the measurements when they were giving me a quote.)</p>
<p>Anybody going overground that day to the Aspen Festival from Denver with cargo and passenger room to spare/purchase?</p>
<p>Yikes! That is very expensive. Most of the bass players I know actually take a train to Aspen or drive (and I mean from the East coast.)
[edit: somehow I didn’t notice your third paragraph which means my suggestion has already been thought of.]</p>
<p>Perhaps your son could query his bass studio and see if anyone is driving through Denver and could coordinate picking him up (that is of course if they have a van themselves or something large. Or perhaps someone who is driving from Denver who has a car and a <em>smaller</em> instrument could help out.) Another solution, which you have probably already considered, would be flying out with him and renting a vehicle to drive to Aspen, but of course that might end up being even more expensive, since you’re need to do it on the return flight as well. On the other hand, you would get to go to Aspen twice.</p>
<p>–Unrelated: this is my 1000th post, and now I am a senior member. Just watched the ticker turn over. --</p>
<p>I am trying to see if my son’s studio teacher at Aspen will have any suggestions. But he’s not someone we’ve had any contact with yet, though I’m trying. My son doesn’t have time to make the whole trip overland - via car or train - since he has a major audition in the east two days before he should arrive in Aspen. (He wanted to take Amtrak but it just wouldn’t work.)</p>
<p>BRamos-- I don’t envy you. Have you looked into flights from Denver to Aspen (I realize that flying a bass is also super-expensive!) My daughter went to Aspen one summer and ended up flying instead of using ground transport and (for a human flight at least) it was not much more expensive, at least at the time.</p>
<p>Surely this problem has been solved before in all the years bass players have been going to Aspen. Might the organizers of the festival be able to tell you how it has been dealt with, or at least connect you with someone who can tell you?</p>
<p>It would be nice if the festival had the foresight to collect and pass on such information, but even the number they give for the official travel agent of the festival in their student handbook is wrong, just for starters.</p>
<p>Sometimes you need to bypass the official channels. The information you are looking for likely can be gotten from one of the Aspen bass teachers or a student who has attended the festival in prior years. Your son might look up contact info for the other teachers in addition to his own, perhaps via the colleges at which they teach, then contact them directly if you do not find a workable solution through this forum.</p>
<p>I think I found a ride back to Denver (a friend who’ll be out there) from Aspen when the festival is done so I just have to figure out getting from Denver to Aspen on 6/20. Posting on Aspen’s Facebook page s probably a really good idea, thanks for the suggestion.</p>
<p>My son is going to Aspen as well with a bass. We have been stressing about this as well. It looks like he will fly into Denver on SW Airlines, and then we will go with Fast Freight, who has agreed to pick him up at the airport and deliver him and his bass to Aspen for $200. I believe he wants to go up on the 19th. We can discuss this privately if you want. This is definitely the most affordable option we could find short of driving from Chicago.</p>
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