Overview:
The longtime Estes Park festival will charge admission for the first time as organizers contend with rising production costs.
For more than three decades, people have been able to wander into Estes Park’s Autumn Gold Festival in Bond Park without paying a dime.
That changes this weekend.
When the annual music festival returns Saturday, Sept. 26, and Sunday, Sept. 27, the Estes Valley Sunrise Rotary Club will charge $10 per day for admission. Children 12 and younger remain free.
The new fee has become a point of frustration for some people accustomed to Autumn Gold being free, a reaction organizers knew was likely when they made the change. Jean Rissmiller, a past president of the Sunrise Rotary Club and co-chair of Autumn Gold, says rising costs made continuing without admission increasingly difficult.
“In 32 years, we’ve never charged, but we are this year,” Rissmiller said. “We are charging $10. We have to. The bands are more expensive, the equipment is more expensive — producing the event just takes more money.”
Unlike some events in Bond Park, Autumn Gold brings in a professional stage and sound system rather than relying on the town’s equipment. That production quality comes with a price, especially for a festival built around two days of live music.
“We don’t want to just break even for such a fantastic music event as Autumn Gold,” she said.
Rissmiller expects the admission charge could deter some visitors.
“This year, there will likely be a few people who object to paying $10 and will walk away,” she said. “There may be people who set up their chair nearby and listen for free.”
Still, organizers are hoping for a crowd comparable to last year. Rissmiller estimates roughly 8,000 to 10,000 people attended the two-day festival in 2025, based in part on the number of wristbands distributed to people purchasing beer, wine, and spirits.
This year, paid admission will give organizers a more precise count.
Five bands fill the weekend
The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Live music begins as soon as the gates open Saturday.
The Wendy Woo Band plays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by Stone Beat Invasion from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Last Men On Earth closes Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday opens with Wrenn Van Band from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., before The Long Run takes the stage from 2:30 to 5 p.m.
Music remains the centerpiece, but Autumn Gold’s familiar combination of food and drinks will return as well. Vendors will sell the festival’s traditional brats alongside roasted corn, crepes, popcorn, coffee, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and other offerings.
Adults looking for something stronger can visit the Rocky Mountain Spirits Experience, presented by Hogback Distillery. Admission to the area is included with the festival ticket, although drinks and samples require appropriate identification.
The experience will feature spirits from Estes Valley-area producers Hogback Distillery, Dry Land Distillers, Larado Whiskey, and Molly Brown Spirits.
Beer and wine will also be available elsewhere in the festival. Anyone planning to purchase alcohol should bring a photo ID.
More than music
Autumn Gold is designed as a family event, with the Estes Valley Community Center providing lawn games and youth activities. Plans include snag golf, ball games with prizes and candy, hula hoops, and face painting. Scouts from Troop 8 will also offer activities.
Visitors can leave Bond Park during the day and return later, allowing festivalgoers to spend time downtown before coming back for another band.
The weekend also includes one of the Sunrise Rotary Club’s major annual raffles. Only 350 tickets are being sold, with seven cash prizes: a $10,000 grand prize, a $2,500 second prize, and five $500 prizes.
Organizers calculate that each ticket has a 1-in-50 chance of winning a prize. The drawing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, and winners do not need to be present.
Raffle proceeds support scholarships for local graduates attending colleges or vocational schools, along with community programs and other Rotary projects. Each raffle ticket also includes one food item and one beverage from the festival.
That fundraising mission is central to why the Sunrise Rotary Club produces Autumn Gold in the first place. The event is organized entirely by volunteers, and money left after festival expenses supports scholarships, nonprofit grants, community service projects, and other Rotary work.
The Sunrise Rotary Club is one of two Rotary clubs serving Estes Park. Rotary service in town dates to 1926, while the Estes Valley Sunrise Rotary Club was chartered in 1987.
For Rissmiller, September is an unusually busy month. She helps lead both Autumn Gold and the club’s Labor Day Arts and Crafts Show, two of its largest fundraisers. Their timing also puts them in front of thousands of visitors who come to Estes Park for fall colors, elk bugling, and trips into Rocky Mountain National Park.
“We feel very blessed,” Rissmiller says of the town’s fall crowds.
This weekend, the club is betting that enough of those visitors — and locals — will find two days of live music worth the new $10 price of admission.
“The marketing gal at Denver 7 said, ‘You’d be amazed at how many people won’t blink at paying for a concert, and then you’ll be kicking yourself for not charging sooner,'” Rissmiller said. “
It’s important to note that the Rotary Club puts in a lot of work to host the Labor Day weekend Arts and Craft show and Autumn Gold. These are fundraising events that support our schools, students and nonprofits. The $10 admission is necessary to cover the overhead, bands and first-rate sound equipment so as not to absorb a loss which would be detrimental to the local organizations who rely on the Rotary Club for ongoing support.
You can’t see this lineup of bands for two days anywhere in Colorado for less.
We locals know exactly where this situation is headed. It’s Estes. Ten becomes twelve. Twelve becomes fifteen. Fifteen becomes twenty. All while the quality and value declines and declines. For all the hundreds of thousands of dollars citizens raise every year, this event ought to be totally free. Voluntary taxes are still taxes.
This is a philanthropic event organized by the Rotary Club to raise money for scholarships and area nonprofits.