🏆 The Wasatch Front’s Top 10 Upcoming Events
The Events That Define The End of Summer and Beginning of Fall Along the Wasatch Front
The stadium lights come on before the leaves turn. High school football kicks off the second week of August, the colleges follow at the end of the month, and from there the Wasatch Front rolls straight into fair season, Oktoberfest weekends, and one last stretch of outdoor concerts under the Avenues skyline. Below are the ten events we'd clear the calendar for between now and the middle of October. This is a living list — as one event passes, another takes its place, so check back before you make your weekend plans.
(Looking further out: FanX returns to the Salt Palace September 24–26.)
1 FOOTBALL RETURNS
High school opens Thursday, Aug. 13 | Colleges open Aug. 28–Sept. 5 | Stadiums across the Wasatch Front | Schedules: uhsaa.org
Nothing else on this list belongs to the neighborhood the way Friday night football does. The high school season opens Thursday, August 13, when Mountain Ridge hosts Skyridge — not a tune-up, but a meeting of the No. 5 and No. 2 teams in 6A — with a full slate of games the following night. From there it's ten weeks of Friday nights within a short drive of nearly every driveway this magazine lands in.
The Deseret News preseason coaches poll gives you the shape of the season: Corner Canyon on top in 6A, Orem in 5A, Ridgeline in 4A, Morgan in 3A, San Juan in 2A, Kanab in 1A, and Rich in 1A eight-player. It's a poll worth taking seriously — five of last year's seven preseason No. 1s went on to win state, and six of seven the year before.
Two of those favorites are breaking in new head coaches. Corner Canyon lost Eric Kjar to Weber State after nine seasons and only ten defeats, handing the program to Casey Sutera, who spent the past four years at Brighton. Orem turns to Andy Stokes, formerly of Dixie and Timpview, and adds Oklahoma commit Krew Jones by way of Ridgeline — a transfer that reshapes two of the state's top-ranked teams at once.
Then the colleges. Utah opens at home on Thursday, September 3 against Idaho, Morgan Scalley's first game as head coach at Rice-Eccles. BYU follows Saturday, September 5, hosting in-state Utah Tech at LaVell Edwards. And up north the same afternoon, Utah State takes on Idaho State at Maverik Stadium to begin its first season in the rebuilt Pac-12 under Bronco Mendenhall.
(Editor's Note: One classification note that trips up even lifelong Utah fans — the UHSAA brackets football separately from every other sport. A school can be 1A on Friday night and 2A on the basketball floor.)
2 RED BUTTE GARDEN OUTDOOR CONCERT SERIES
Select nights through September 22 | Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre, University of Utah, Salt Lake City | Tickets: redbuttegarden.org
If you do one live-music thing on the Wasatch Front before the weather turns, do it here. Now in its 39th year and one of the longest-running outdoor series in the state, Red Butte packs 31 shows into a botanical-garden amphitheater with skyline views, world-class sound, and a picnic-on-the-lawn ease no arena can touch.
The closing stretch is the good stuff. August brings jazz legend Herbie Hancock (Aug. 13), Jesse Welles with Ratboys (Aug. 14), Men at Work and Toad the Wet Sprocket with Shonen Knife (Aug. 17), and Gov't Mule (Aug. 20). Ray LaMontagne with The Weather Station on August 23 is already sold out. September slows down but doesn't let up: Bonnie Raitt with Jon Cleary (Sept. 9), Utah's own The National Parks making their Red Butte debut (Sept. 17), The Record Company with Cracker (Sept. 20), and The Revivalists closing the season on September 22.
(Editor's Note: Buy in person at the Garden Visitor Center to skip the online fees — and don't wait, because the marquee nights routinely sell out. Gates open 90 minutes before showtime. If you've only got one night left in you, make it The National Parks; a Utah band's first time on that stage is its own kind of event.)
3 SNOWBIRD'S OKTOBERFEST
Saturdays & Sundays plus Labor Day, August 8 – October 11 | Noon to 6 p.m. | Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, Little Cottonwood Canyon | Admission: Free (parking fee) | Info: snowbird.com
Ten weekends. No cover charge. Utah's original Oktoberfest draws more than 60,000 people a season to the base of Little Cottonwood, and it's less a beer festival than a standing invitation to spend a fall Saturday in the mountains.
The biergarten pours more than fifty varieties, German-style and Utah-brewed alike, with a wine garden alongside and non-alcoholic options for anyone driving. The food is the real argument: bratwurst and weisswurst, sauerkraut and spaetzle, beef rouladen, warm pretzels, Bavarian roasted almonds, and apple strudel worth the drive on its own. The Marktplatz fills in with local artisans, and there's enough live music and open space to keep a family occupied for an afternoon.
What makes it worth a spot on this list is longevity — this is the one event here that's still running when the aspens go gold.
Know before you go: Admission is free but parking is not. No dogs — Little Cottonwood is protected watershed. Runs rain, snow, or shine, and mountain weather at that elevation does what it wants, so bring a layer. Buy a one-liter stein once and reuse it all season for a discount on refills.
(Editor's Note: Don't drink and drive, and don't fight the canyon. Snowbird runs a free shuttle to and from the park-and-ride at 9400 South Highland Drive, where rideshare is easy. Walk-ups are first-come; reserve ahead if you can.)
4 CECRET LAKE & THE ALBION BASIN WILDFLOWERS
Last call — roughly two weeks of bloom left | Albion Basin, top of Little Cottonwood Canyon, Alta | Trail info: alta.com/summer
Go now or wait a year. For a few weeks each summer the meadows above Alta erupt into one of the West's great alpine blooms — lupine, Indian paintbrush, columbine, and more than 120 species carpeting the basin above 9,500 feet. Peak lands late July into early August, which means the window is closing as you read this. By Labor Day the color story up there is aspens, not wildflowers.
The payoff is Cecret Lake, roughly 1.7 miles round trip to a glassy alpine lake ringed by peaks. Easy-to-moderate, though the final switchbacks steepen and the altitude is real.
And the spelling? Not a typo on our end. "Cecret" is a leftover from Little Cottonwood's 1800s mining boom — the miners who named these places weren't winning spelling bees, and the misspelling stuck so thoroughly that the U.S. Geological Survey still prints it that way on official maps. (They did the same with Snowbird's "Iron Blosam.")
Know before you go: The Summer Road is open, with a $12 per-vehicle fee at the booth. Parking up top is very limited and fills early — on weekends, take Alta's shuttle and skip the stress. No swimming: Cecret is a source of Salt Lake City's drinking water.
(Editor's Note: A weekday morning is the whole game here. By mid-morning on a summer Saturday the lots are full and you'll be on the shuttle anyway. Miss the bloom and the same trail is worth walking in late September for fall color instead.)
5 PARK CITY KIMBALL ARTS FESTIVAL
August 7–9 | Historic Main Street, Park City | Tickets: kimballartcenter.org
For one weekend each August, Park City's Historic Main Street becomes one of the West's premier open-air galleries. Presented by the Kimball Art Center, the festival lines the street with hundreds of juried artists showing original painting, photography, sculpture, and ceramics, alongside live music, food, and the mountain-town backdrop that's made it a Utah summer tradition for more than half a century. It's an easy drive up the canyon and a browse-and-buy paradise for serious collectors and first-time art buyers alike.
(Editor's Note: Go early in the day for easier parking and lighter crowds — and bring cash for the smaller booths. Same weekend, different flavor: the Craft Lake City DIY Festival takes over the Utah State Fairpark August 7–9 with more than 500 Utah artisans, vintage sellers, craft food makers, and STEM exhibitors. Kimball is where you buy the piece for over the mantel; Craft Lake City is where you meet the maker. craftlakecity.com)
6 IDINA MENZEL AT DEER VALLEY
Saturday, August 8 | Snow Park Outdoor Amphitheater, Deer Valley Resort, Park City | Tickets: deervalleymusicfestival.org
Few voices are as instantly recognizable across generations as Idina Menzel's. The Tony Award–winning singer behind Wicked's "Defying Gravity" and Frozen's "Let It Go" takes the Snow Park stage backed by the Utah Symphony, performing selections from her Broadway and film catalog under the open mountain sky. Part of the Deer Valley Music Festival's 22nd season, it's the kind of evening — picnic on the lawn, blanket on the grass, world-class orchestra at golden hour — that makes a Park City summer night feel like an event in itself.
7 UTAH SYMPHONY: FILM SCORES UNDER THE STARS
Thursday, August 13 | Snow Park Outdoor Amphitheater, Deer Valley Resort, Park City | Tickets: deervalleymusicfestival.org
Our Family Pick. From a dragon's flight to a galaxy far, far away, the Utah Symphony brings the movies to life under the open stars at Deer Valley. The program spans Pirates of the Caribbean, Mission: Impossible, How to Train Your Dragon, and Disney classics like Beauty and the Beast — the kind of melodies that land instantly with kids and grown-ups alike. Spread out a blanket, pack a picnic, and let the orchestra do the rest. If you're introducing the family to live symphonic music, there's no better on-ramp than this.
8 JOSH JOHNSON — COMEDY BAND CAMP
August 21–22 | Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, Salt Lake City | Tickets: utahpresents.org
If your comedy feed has been taken over by one guy calmly making sense of the week's chaos, it's probably Josh Johnson. The Emmy-nominated Daily Show writer and correspondent has become one of the most-watched stand-ups on the internet, turning out topical sets that rack up millions of views — and he brings his live show to Kingsbury Hall for two nights in August. Sharp, fast, and genuinely fresh, he's the rare comic who blew up online and is even better in a room.
(Editor's Note: Single tickets are on sale now through UtahPresents — don't sit on it, because Kingsbury shows this size don't linger.)
9 UTAH STATE FAIR
September 10–20 | Utah State Fairpark, 155 N. 1000 West, Salt Lake City | Tickets: utahstatefair.com
Eleven days, sixty-five acres, and a tradition that predates the state itself. The first version was held in 1856 as the Deseret Fair, in a tithing office across the street from where the Salt Lake Temple would eventually rise — which makes this one of the oldest continuously running events in Utah, and easily the biggest thing on the fall calendar.
The formula hasn't needed much updating: a midway, livestock barns full of 4-H and FFA kids who've been working toward this week all year, competitive canning and quilting and pie, grandstand concerts, rodeo, and fair food engineered to be eaten standing up. It opens the first Thursday after Labor Day and runs through the following Sunday.
(Editor's Note: Weeknights beat weekends by a wide margin — same fair, half the parking headache. If you're bringing kids, the livestock barns in the late afternoon are the sleeper attraction; that's when the exhibitors are around and happy to talk about their animals.)
10 TIMPANOGOS STORYTELLING FESTIVAL
September 10–12 | Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point, Lehi | Tickets: timpfest.org
Thirty-seven years on, this is the largest storytelling festival in the western United States, and it happens in Lehi every year on the weekend after Labor Day. Professional tellers come in from across the country, set up in tents across the Ashton Gardens, and spend three days doing the oldest thing there is.
Thursday, September 10 is a $10 sneak peek — doors at 3 p.m., with access to the gardens, music, tents, and an evening concert. Friday and Saturday run all day and into the night, and Friday evening splits three ways depending on your crowd: Bedtime Stories for families with small kids at $5 a head, Story Showcase for all ages, and Shivers for anyone who likes the hair on their arms to stand up. Saturday closes with The Last Laugh.
New this year: everything moves into the Ashton Gardens proper, as the old Show Barn comes down for Thanksgiving Point's STEM expansion.
(Editor's Note: Bring your own food and non-alcoholic drinks — it's allowed and it's cheaper. Six or more full-event tickets gets you 25% off, so this is one to organize with another family or two. Can't make it? TimpFest Online carries every program from October 15 through February 1.)
RETURN to THE MAIN EVENT Home Page and select another category to find other fun adventures for adults and families!