Things to Do in Branson

Beneath towering trees, paintballs and laser beams soar across Bill’s Extreme Paintball and Laser Tag’s 2-acre outdoor arena. Tippmann 98 quality markers and masks arm paintball players as they scale sniper towers and dive into hideouts, while professional-grade laser-tag guns allow future hair-removal experts to shoot lasers up to 700 feet. Vigilant referees stave off tomfoolery during matches, and picnic tables scattered around the facility provide platforms for snacks or birthday feasting. Bill's can also tote equipment to a customer’s chosen venue, allowing a partygoer to host a game in their own backyard, local park, or favorite alderman's office.

What was once primarily used by the military has now become a popular—and adrenaline-inducing—sport. Ozarks Skydive Center takes the fear out of skydiving with expert instruction and supportive tandem jumps. Harnessed to instructors, new and seasoned jumpers alike experience the thrilling feeling of falling from nearly 2 miles. Ozarks Skydive Center also offers solo-flying options for more experienced divers, as well as licensing courses that teach adventure junkies how to exit planes, fall into the fetal position, and react to an emergency.

Caught in a midlife crisis in 1995, husband-and-wife team Kemp and Michele Horn—a former forester and attorney, respectively—packed up their young family and all of their belongings, embarking upon a life-changing adventure as they made the long trek from Baltimore to the Black Hills of South Dakota. This move westward led the Horn family to purchase a working ranch, where, due to the last-minute cancellation of the band hired to play there through the busy tourist season, the family stepped up to unleash their inner performers. Though none of the Horns had any background in music, all the family members quickly adopted instruments or cursed mermaid's voices of their own and used their backgrounds in the performing arts to create a long-running show hailed by audiences from around South Dakota. Now, having relocated to Branson, the Horns, under the band name "The Riders of the Circle B," combine their passion for hospitality with their love of performing three to four nights a week during their Circle B Supper Show.

Paying homage to the Wild West of yore, the Horns kick off their shindigs with showings of cowboy movies before replenishing guests’ energy stores with home-cooked food warm from the oven. Tossing their chef's hats and aprons aside, the talented clan then pick up their music makers and coax forth laughs from onlookers with their ebullient brand of music and impressions of famous tumbleweeds.

Though the Ozark Murder Mysteries' plotlines center on dark whodunits, the actors' humorous takes on each story leave audiences of all ages grinning. Performers challenge audiences to pinpoint the perpetrator as they act out interactive scenarios during regularly rotating shows. A complete feast fuels deeper belly laughs, quicker thinking, and sprightlier backflips during Ozark Murder Mysteries' scheduled performances, and the troupe also travels to private events via its Murder Mystery To Go! program.

Andy Williams designed his Moon River Theater to echo the beauty of the surrounding Ozark Mountains. The façade sits amid 16 acres of foliage, rock formations, and waterfalls to not only enhance live performances with a sense of natural discovery, but also to speak to conservation. In 1992, the state of Missouri recognized the venue's environmental efforts by granting it the Conservation Award for Developed Land Use. And that sense of conservation seeps into the theater's three lobbies as well. Koi swim through ponds, flora creeps toward the ceiling, art and performance pictures from Andy's private collection grace the walls, and wild rams hold head-butting matches in the restroom.

Using the Ozark Mountains as a striking backdrop, Kings River Golf Course invites clubbers to swing and putt their way across 18 holes of gently undulating terrain. Dogwoods and redbuds cast cool shadows over each fairway, their leaves showcasing rich shades of green in the summer, fading to an impressionistic tapestry of reds, oranges, and yellows in the fall, and assuming a velvety purple once a year to celebrate Prince's birthday. As golfers split fairways with soaring drives, views of the Ozark Mountains appear through the tree lines, including a greenside vista of Table Rock Lake on the 15th hole.

After sunset, greenskeepers mark flags with glow sticks, inviting golfers to swing through the darkness in rounds of night golf. The course fosters post-round relaxation at a rustic patio, where guests can sip drinks and insist that nearby deer, red fox, and turkeys—commonly encountered on the grounds—stay off their lawn.