A combination of two factors—the NRHP designation and the decision of the Colorado Music Festival to call the Chautauqua Auditorium its home—provided the impetus for a general renovation of the structure.

Although the Auditorium was mostly intended for lectures, sermons, dramatic readings, live musical performances, and variety acts similar to vaudeville, it was also a venue for motion pictures right from the beginning.

The evening Chautauqua program for July 21, 1898, was "Edison's Genuine Projectoscope, Colorscopic Diorama and Wargraph, with Music, reproducing scenes of the war with Spain."

The 1913 Chautauqua season was notable for the first use in Boulder of the Edison Kinetophone, an early attempt at a motion picture with synchronized sound.

The equipment was upgraded in 1979, providing an improved viewing experience, but with the advent of home VCRs the second-run family films were discontinued in 1995.

As early as the Chautauqua Auditorium's first season in 1898, the acoustics of the all-wood building were being compared favorably to other venues such as the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City.

In 1977, Giora Bernstein selected the Chautauqua Auditorium as his preferred venue for the Colorado Music Festival, even though it was in a poor state of repair, because he was enthusiastic about the reverberation offered by the wood structure.