Editing Paonia, Colorado (section)

==Festivities==
[[File:3rd and Grand.jpg|thumb|upright=1.45|Corner of 3rd and Grand in Paonia, 2009]]

===Paonia Cherry Days Festival===
Paonia celebrates its "Cherry Days" festival annually on the week of July 4. It features parades, family and class reunions, games, arts and crafts, and musical performances. Paonia Cherry Days is one of the longest running outdoor festivals in Colorado. Started by the Paonia Lions Club in 1946, the festival continues to be run by community volunteers.

===Mountain Harvest Festival===
The [[Mountain Harvest Festival]] is a three-day event in downtown Paonia held during the last weekend of September. There are over 20 musical acts, poetry, an art show, a [[chili con carne|chili]] cook off, a street dance, crafts, wine tasting, as well as classes on canning, raising livestock, and [[sustainable living]].

===Rainbow Gathering===
In 1992 the annual [[Rainbow Gathering]] was held at nearby Overland Reservoir. An estimated 18,275 people converged on the site and lived in temporary dwellings for the summer. Although the reservoir is {{convert|27|mi}} from Paonia, it had a significant impact on all the towns in the North Fork Valley, including Paonia. Many "New Agers" and members of the psychedelic community continue to reside in and around Paonia, which was the boyhood home of one of the voices and key figures of "ecstatic state" knowledge, [[Terence McKenna]].

===Paonia Film Festival===
The Paradise Theater in downtown Paonia hosts a biennial film festival. The Paonia Film Festival celebrates the beauty of the Western Colorado landscape and the rich stories of the people who live there.

The 2021 Paonia Film Festival shifted to showcase filmmakers local to the Western Slope of Colorado and filmmakers through the Western United States on a two-tier system. The event was on November 6–7, 2021.

===Pickin' in the Park===
The town has live music in the park every Thursday evening during the month of August.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pickinproductions.com/pickin-in-the-park|title = Pickin' in the Park}}</ref>