The MusicFest At Steamboat Returns In January Celebrating 40 Years

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The MusicFest at Steamboat returns Jan. 5 – 10, 2026, and is celebrating a monumental milestone 40th anniversary this year.

The festival got its start in the early 1980s as a way to bring friends and musicians together on the slopes, and has steadily grown into the nation’s largest and most beloved winter music festival—a six-day alpine marathon of nearly 200 performances featuring over 70 acts across multiple mountain venues.

The 2026 lineup will celebrate both the icons and the up-and-coming artists, and performances will span iconic venues like The MusicFest Dance Hall (Colorado’s largest), the Gravity Haus Tavern, Fish Camp, Stargazers at 10,525 feet, world’s only Dung Beetle Saloon and the legendary MusicFest Base Camp stage nestled at the foot of the Rockies.

“Back in the ‘90s, when mainstream music was all polish and no soul, we coined our motto: Get Real,” says Founder John Dickson of Dickson Productions. “Forty years later, we still mean it. The MusicFest is a celebration of authenticity—in music, in connection, in experience.”

MusicFest has sold out 23 years in a row, and 2026 is poised to mark the 24th. Thousands of fans lock in their packages a year in advance, and all-inclusive packages begin at around $1,000 and include 6 days/5 nights of lodging, 4 full-day lift tickets, and access to every show.

Since its first outdoor show in 1986 held in the middle of the Rockies with beer freezing in the bottles, MusicFest has played a defining role in shaping the Red Dirt and Texas music scenes. Alumni of the fest include Pat Green, Robert Earl Keen, Randy Rogers, Turnpike Troubadours, Parker McCollum, Koe Wetzel, Cody Johnson, Charley Crockett, and Reckless Kelly, among hundreds of others.

Lorie Hollabaugh
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