Things to Do in Syracuse

Expose your pupils and ear canals to an impressive 10-hour lineup of mainstream country acts performing across multiple stages. Headlined by the platinum-album-selling, award-winning Montgomery Gentry, Country Throwdown also plays host to up-and-coming acts such as Ashley Ray, an ex-cheerleader with a guitar pick in one hand and a beer in the other, on the Blue Bird Café Stage. To pregame for the festival, view the full stage-by-stage set list here and enjoy a free seven-song Country Throwdown Tour digital sampler here. To fully immerse yourself, check out the Country Throwdown iPhone app.

Within Clark Planetarium's space-exploration-themed facility, the interactive displays and immersive IMAX and planetarium shows enlighten visitors with interesting scientific facts. Spread out across 10,000 square feet, more than 15 hands-on exhibits entrance guests with artifacts such as photos from the Hubble Space Telescope and a moon rock brought back from the Apollo 15 mission.

Audio in the ATK IMAX Theatre emanates from a 14,000-watt digital surround-sound system as the 70-foot wide, five-story-high screen accommodates Hollywood hits and insightful documentaries in 3-D. More entertainment abounds in the Hansen Dome Theatre, where six high-definition projectors fill the 55-foot domed screen with seamless images during scientific films and cosmic light shows.

Park City was founded as a mining town, filled with miners that purportedly drank, gambled, frequented brothels, and committed crimes. Park City Ghost Tours’ guides delve into this illicit history during 70-minute walking tours. They investigate the sites most known for hauntings and chills while relaying the harrowing history of each. Tours begin nightly at 8 p.m., when the sun is thoroughly below the horizon and it gets harder to tell the difference between a zombie and a parking meter.

In his final appearance as associate conductor of the Utah Symphony, David Cho joins 2010 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition silver medalist Serhiy Salov in the acoustically pleasing confines of Abravanel Hall. Together, the note-channeling duo performs Sibelius' Third Symphony and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 before breaking into a superbly amusing Laurel and Hardy impersonation. While descending the stage of his farewell performance, David Cho will step into the orchestra pit and, like a classically trained butterfly, emerge as the musical director of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra. The architecturally impressive Abravanel Hall is worth the trip in and of itself, as its luscious acoustics allow symphony-goers to pinpoint staccato eighth notes and falsetto pin drops.

Designed by U.S. Open champion Johnny Miller, Stonebridge's Scottish-links-style course features 27 holes designed to test your swing and backstroke. The course's namesake red-rock bridges arch over and beside three tough nines, each almost 3,600 yards long, making this one of the longest courses in the state. With 20 of the holes adjacent to water, it's also one of the most pond-besotten. Three smaller teeing areas complement the harder drives, and small streams coil beside some the course's 93 sand bunkers.

Bumper cars collide, mini roller coasters swerve along tracks, and tubes weave around slides at a soft play area inside The Hollywood Connection's 160,000-square-foot facility. Roller or inline skates glide to pop and rock tunes in a rink illumined with cyber lights and IntelliBeam, and the laser-tag arena glows in neon paint, black lights, and fireflies that carry demands across enemy lines. Elsewhere, golf balls tumble down greens toward 18 holes with themes such as the Old West, an underwater cove, and the prehistoric era. An arcade hosts more than 100 driving, racing, and combat-simulator video games, and a 15-screen Carmike Ritz movie theater treats up to 2,000 viewers to new releases on digital, 3-D-capacity screens. Visitors can reenergize between attractions with popcorn or snow cones from the snack stand (open Friday–Sunday), nab cones from the ice-cream parlor, and shape stacks of nachos into pompadours at the '50s-themed diner.