The Heber Valley Western Music and Cowboy Poetry Gathering is excited to announce its 24th annual celebration, set to take place Oct. 25 – 29, 2018. With over 10,000 tickets sold in 2017, director Ted Caldwell and producer Mary Kelly project that this year’s gathering will be bigger than ever. Featuring Grammy Award-winning folk and country singer Suzy Bogguss alongside the Heber Valley Orchestra, 2018’s lineup of more than 30 entertainers will immerse festival-goers in song and spoken word across seven different stages throughout the valley.
Festivities kick off Thursday, Oct. 25 with a free community night at Wasatch High School from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Everyone is welcome to come on out and celebrate our western roots during a great night of family fun.
Thanks to this year’s lineup of musicians and poets, the Heber Valley can expect a weekend full of good old-fashioned western entertainment. Featuring famous cowboy poet and master of ceremonies Waddie Mitchell, as well as Bar J Wranglers, John Anderson, Max T Barnes and many more, this year’s gathering will be full of spectacular performers.
New to the gathering this year is the Cowboy Comedy Creek Concert, a show that is sure to have audiences in stitches. Full of jokes, yodeling, hysterical songs and comical antics, this show is not to be missed! Always a fan favorite, the mounted shooters will be back this year to battle it out on galloping horseback, competing for speed and accuracy.
Bringing the wonders of the wild west to the children of the valley, the Dyer Highway siblings and Yukon Indian Ed Peekeekoot, will perform fun western music at local elementary schools. Older students will visit the Mountain Man Traders Camp to learn more about their western heritage. The camp will be up and running all weekend, stocked with pottery, knives, skins and other old west wares. As always, the Buckaroo Ball on Friday night is sure to get you on your dancing feet!
Every year the Western Music and Cowboy Poetry Gathering joins the residents of the Heber Valley with people from all over the world to honor and celebrate cowboy culture. Through song, dance and western tradition, our community can continue the legacy of life in the west. “It’s a passion to many who come back year after year,” said Kelly. “We’ve had some memorable experiences that are life-changing. We want so badly to keep the western lifestyle alive for this next generation. They don’t know about western life and we want to keep it alive so that they remember their heritage.”
The Heber Valley Western Music and Cowboy Poetry Gathering’s mission is to promote the cowboy way of life through music, poetry and art by holding an annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering and Buckaroo Fair, and by giving back to the community along the way.
