5 Best Performing Arts in Moab, Moab and Southeastern Utah

Every Memorial Day weekend, artists from across the West gather at Moab's Swanny City Park to show their wares, including pottery, photography, and paintings. This fun, free festival is small enough to be manageable and sells a variety of affordable artworks and crafts. Expect lots of food, plus activities for the kids. Most days have live music and local theater on two stages.

Some of America's top folk artists converge in Moab each November to perform on indoor and outdoor stages. Past artists have included Richard Thompson, Shawn Colvin, Bruce Cockburn, Loudon Wainwright III, and Ferron.

For more than a week each year, Easter Jeep Safari draws thousands of 4x4 vehicles to Moab to tackle some of the toughest backcountry roads in America. For all other visitors (and some locals), this is a good time of year to avoid town.

Moab's red rocks resonate with world-class music—classical, jazz, and traditional—during this annual festival held at indoor and outdoor venues including the city park, local auditoriums, private homes, and a natural stone grotto along the Colorado River. Musicians from all over the globe perform, and it's one of the West's top music showcases. The festival starts the Thursday before Labor Day and runs about two weeks.

This unique event brings together the diverse Moab community on the last Saturday of October. This festival may not be like any other you've attended; here, people from all over the Southwest build contraptions—catapults, trebuchets, and slingshots—that send pumpkins across the sky. Live music, about 25 vendor booths, and typically beautiful weather make this a popular event. Proceeds go toward the Youth Garden Project.