Salt Lake City: Tabernacle Choir & Temple Square Bus Tour

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Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/17

Duration3h 30m

GroupUp to 30

LanguagesEN

Mobile ticketAccepted

360 Voices & 11,632 Pipes: Inside the Tabernacle Choir's Historic Sunday Broadcast

You hear 360 voices and an 11,632-pipe organ fill a room with acoustics so perfect it feels like the sound is coming from inside your chest. Then you ride an air-conditioned bus past the granite temple, the State Capitol with its mountain views, the Cathedral of the Madeleine, and the exact spot where pioneers declared they'd found home in 1847. Your guide handles all the history and timing; you just show up with your ticket already secured and minimal walking ahead.

3h 30m

Step-by-step itinerary

Tabernacle Choir and Salt Lake City Tour

Attend Tabernacle Choir live broadcast
Explore Salt Lake Tabernacle interior
Admire Salt Lake Temple exterior
Visit LDS Conference Center
Tour Temple Square grounds
Visit Utah State Capitol building
View City and County Building
See Mormon Battalion Monument
Marvel at Cathedral of the Madeleine
See City Creek Center
Visit This is the Place Heritage Park
Experience Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail
View Salt Lake City Public Library
See Utah Governor's Mansion
View Beehive House
View Council Hall
Gaze at Olympic Cauldron
See Delta Center arena
Admire Joseph Smith Memorial Building
Explore the Gateway district
View Family History Library
Glance at Fort Douglas parade grounds
Admire Abravanel Hall exterior
View Church Office Building
Glance at McCune Mansion
See Rice-Eccles Stadium
Admire Kingsbury Hall
Take in Washington Square park
Experience Temple Square overview
See Assembly Hall
Pass beneath Eagle Gate
View Brigham Young Monument and Meridian Marker
View Salt Lake Masonic Temple exterior
See Deuel Pioneer Log Home

The Experience

You've just landed in Salt Lake City, and the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square starts in a few hours. If you booked Sunday, your seat is already held—walk-ins don't get in anymore. The demand is real: this is the world's longest-running continuous broadcast, on air since 1929, and the 360-voice choir plus that iconic organ fill a room built in 1867 with acoustics so perfect you can hear a pin drop from 170 feet away. The building itself is the story: a self-supporting dome spanning 150 feet with zero interior pillars, hand-built by Mormon pioneers who had no modern tools. You'll sit inside that acoustic miracle and listen to what President Reagan called America's Choir—they've sung at six presidential inaugurations.

After the broadcast (or rehearsal, if you chose Thursday), you step onto an air-conditioned bus for the 2.5-hour city tour. Your guide takes you through Temple Square first—the 10-acre spiritual heart where the granite temple rises with six soaring spires, the tallest reaching 210 feet. The stones were hand-cut by pioneers over 40 years, 1853 to 1893. You'll see the Assembly Hall with its Gothic spires built from leftover temple granite, the Eagle Gate marking where Brigham Young's property began, and the Seagull Monument commemorating Utah's pioneer miracle story. The guide shares how this square became Utah's #1 tourist attraction, welcoming millions annually, and you understand why the moment you see it.

Then the bus climbs to the Utah State Capitol, a Neoclassical masterpiece finished in 1916 with a copper dome rising 285 feet. You get out for photos—the view frames the entire Salt Lake Valley against the Wasatch Mountains, and on a clear day you see all the way to the Great Salt Lake. The guide points out the City and County Building, that red Romanesque Revival structure from 1894 with its 256-foot clock tower, and tells you it nearly got demolished before someone recognized it as a treasure worth saving. You pass the Cathedral of the Madeleine, a Gothic Revival cathedral completed in 1909 with twin spires reaching 220 feet—the only Catholic cathedral in Utah, built in a predominantly Latter-day Saint city by European craftsmen who brought medieval architecture to the American West.

The route includes the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, once the grand Hotel Utah that opened in 1911 as the city's first luxury hotel, and the LDS Conference Center—the world's largest religious auditorium, completed in 2000, seating 21,000 with a 7,667-pipe organ. You'll see where Brigham Young stood in 1847 and declared "This is the right place," ending the pioneers' 1,300-mile journey from Illinois. The 60-foot monument marks that exact spot, and the panoramic view shows you the same landscape they saw: the valley spread below, mountains rising dramatically, the Great Salt Lake visible in the distance. The guide explains how over 70,000 Latter-day Saint pioneers followed that same route between 1846 and 1869, one of the largest voluntary migrations in American history.

You'll also pass the modern Salt Lake City Public Library, designed by Moshe Safdie and opened in 2003—an $84 million architectural landmark with a striking curved glass wall and rooftop garden that earned international recognition. The Family History Library, the world's largest genealogical library, sits on Temple Square with billions of ancestral records. The guide explains how Utah became the global center for family history research, and how FamilySearch now carries that mission forward. If you're traveling on a Sunday, children under 8 sit in a separate section due to the sensitive acoustics and recording equipment—the guide will explain the logistics when you arrive. The entire experience takes about six hours from start to finish, and you're back at your hotel by early afternoon.

What’s included

Your day includes hotel pickup (if booked with that option), entry to the Tabernacle Choir live broadcast on Sunday or open rehearsal on Thursday, a fully-guided 2.5-hour city tour on an air-conditioned premium bus, photo stops at Temple Square, the Utah State Capitol with panoramic valley views, the Cathedral of the Madeleine, the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and the historic site where Brigham Young declared "This is the right place" in 1847. The guide shares stories about pioneer history, the temple's 40-year construction, the acoustic engineering of the 1867 Tabernacle, and the landmarks that shaped Salt Lake City from a remote valley into a thriving capital.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearbyInfants must sit on laps

Operated by City Sights, Inc.

Is this one for you?Book this if you want the Tabernacle Choir experience without the uncertainty of walk-in entry, plus a structured overview of Salt Lake City's most significant landmarks in one morning—the fixed schedule and included tickets mean you skip the logistics and focus on the history.