Heber Valley Western Music and Cowboy Poetry Gathering this week in Heber Valley and Midway

Photo: Open Mic by Matt Botsford via Unsplash

HEBER Valley, Utah — This week will mark the 27th Heber Valley Western Music and Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Heber Valley, starting on October 13. The event will feature a variety of activities and performances designed “to celebrate the cowboy way of life through music, poetry, and art” around Heber Valley and Midway.

Among the performing musicians are Sawyer Brown, Ned LeDoux, and Ben Haggard, accompanied throughout the weekend by poets including Andy Nelson, Jeff Carson, and Jo Lynne Kirkwood.

General admission for activities during the event is $12, with concert ticket prices depending on the venue and artist. Thursday, October 13, however, is “free community day,” with free access to Buckaroo Fair Vendors, a “mountain man trader’s camp,” a quick-draw cowboy shooting, and an open-mic stage that will run from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. at Wasatch High School.

Ted Caldwell, director of the event said that he looks forward to the “host cowboy and cowgirl singers, poets, songwriters, artists, and craftsmen, the best darn cowboy poetry and western music you can find anywhere.”

The first Heber Valley Western Music and Cowboy Poetry Gathering took place on “a crystal clear day in the fall of 1994,” according to their website. The Midway Town Hall hosted the first poetry reading, and attendees enjoyed Dutch-oven cowboy chili. The Gathering has grown so much since then that it had to move from the town hall to Wasatch High School and attracts people from all across the country.

You can buy tickets and learn more about the Gathering here.