Festivals and Events

Each year Lake Tahoe [1] hosts a number of big festivals in both summer and wintertime, though undoubtedly summer is high festival season.

One of the biggest of these is the Lake Tahoe Music Festival (www.tahoemusic.org [2]). Players like Kenny Loggins and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy perform alongside symphony orchestras over a three-week stretch in late July and early August. Concerts are held at a number of venues—often ski resorts such as Homewood, Alpine Meadows [3], and Tahoe Donner [4]. Check the festival website for this year’s concert dates, times, venues, and ticket prices.

If you enjoy costumes and want to dive into the living history of the early 20th-century wealth and privilege that surrounded Lake Tahoe [1], hit the Great Gatsby Festival (http://tahoeheritage.org [5], Aug.) at the Tallac Historic Site [6] . In the heat of August each year, actors and volunteers dress in period attire and stroll the grounds of the estates, mimicking 1920s vacationers.

The most popular event of this two-day festival is the Gatsby Tea on Saturday afternoon. For $30, you’ll enjoy a sumptuous afternoon high tea spiced up by entertainment that culminates in a vintage fashion show. On both days, additional entertainments, tours, and vendors selling early 1900s-styled items draw folks onto the estates.

California theater-lovers have been known to drive for hours to see the shows of the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival (www.laketahoeshakespeare.com [7], July–Aug.). In 1995, a new stage facility was built at the classic Sand Harbor State Park beach location (three miles south of Incline Village on SR-28). Festival-goers can still flop onto a towel in the sand, but the play they’ll watch will be a world-class Shakespearean production. (In truth, you’ll be much comfier if you bring a low beach chair to sit in for the show.)