10 Best Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs and Northwest Colorado, Colorado

The Avalon Theatre is one of the largest performing arts complexes in western Colorado, offering traveling lectures, dance, theater, and other cultural performances. The popular monthly "Dinner and a Movie" Tuesday nights bring classic and popular old blockbusters to the big screen, with receipts from a meal in town garnering free admission. A $9 million renovation, completed in late 2014, restored and upgraded the 1923 facility, adding seating, reception areas, and a rooftop terrace, while making audio/visual improvements and allowing the theater to expand its cultural offerings.

September brings the annual Colorado Mountain Winefest.

The town's Fat Tire Festival brings mountain bikers from all over together to take on the area's trails every May.

The highly regarded, 95-piece Grand Junction Symphony performs in venues throughout the city, including the Avalon Theatre, Sherwood Park, Stocker Stadium, and area vineyards.

Every year since 1980, mid-July in Steamboat has meant hot-air balloons and fine art, a combination that draws folks from miles around to watch more than 25 balloons float out over the valley from Bald Eagle Lake each morning. The rest of the weekend is devoted to the display and sale of hundreds of works of art from all over the world at West Lincoln Park.

In summer Grande River Vineyards hosts a concert series featuring classical, country, blues, and rock music. The natural landscape contributes to the good acoustics, not to mention the spectacular sunsets. Concertgoers lounge in lawn chairs, enjoying picnics and dancing barefoot on the grass, and sometimes the concerts are held in the cellars.

You can watch professional sheepdogs in action at the annual Meeker Classic Sheepdog Trials, a prestigious five-day international competition and one of the town's biggest draws. Sheepdogs and their handlers perform sheepherding maneuvers on a closed course while competing for a $27,000 prize. The event takes place at Ute Park the weekend after Labor Day.

The town of Fruita celebrates Mike the Headless Chicken Days every June with the Chicken Dance and the Run Like a Headless Chicken 5K Race.

Palisade celebrates the harvest for four days every August during the Palisade Peach Festival, most of which is held at Riverbend Park.

The focus is on chamber music and chamber-orchestra music presented by more than 150 musicians, including Grammy winners and other internationally renowned talents, throughout summer, primarily in the tent on the weekends. But Strings also offers big names in jazz, country, big band, bluegrass, and world music (Pink Martini, Lyle Lovett, and Dirty Dozen Brass Band, to name a few), as well as free concerts during its "Music on the Green" lunchtime series at Yampa River Botanic Park on Thursday in summer.