WILLIAMSBURG This town offers so many opportunities to enjoy visual and performing arts that it's sometimes hard to remember that history is its main attraction.

Colonial Williamsburg's myriad performances and museum galleries make up only a small part of an array that includes an annual Shakespeare festival, a professional chamber orchestra, and a fine-arts museum associated with the College of William and Mary.

Even the Williamsburg Regional Library boasts an intimate concert hall and a long-running folk and jazz concert program, aptly named the Dewey Decibel Concert Series.

Williamsburg and surrounding counties have an estimated total population of about 80,000, and some say the amount of art created there would be the pride of a much larger metropolitan region.

"It's got the kind of degree of artistic endeavors that other comparable communities would really envy," said Patrick Golden, the library's program-services director and producer of the concert series. "I think that's partly because there's always been a focus that Williamsburg is something special."

Twice a year, Williamsburg holds special events to showcase the arts and attract crowds to the center of town.

The Occasion for the Arts, on a Sunday in early October, is a juried art show in which artists' booths filled with paintings, sculpture, jewelry and fine crafts stretch for blocks while dozens of performing groups entertain from six stages.

Then comes First Night Williamsburg, a nonalcoholic New Year's Eve celebration that this year will showcase about 60 performers in 24 buildings in the town and on the William and Mary campus.

And on any Saturday morning in nice weather, musical performances highlight a well-attended farmer's market in the city's Merchants Square shopping district.

Also in Merchants Square, Colonial Williamsburg and the college have broadened the Kimball Theatre from its former status as a movie house to a live theater and performance venue for acts ranging from rock'n'roll to the professional Williamsburg Symphonia.

The Norfolk-based Virginia Symphony also comes to town several times a year for performances at St. Bede Catholic Church and the college's Sunken Garden.

Meanwhile, the Muscarelle Museum of Art at William and Mary recently has shown some ambition to reach a new level of renown by hosting internationally important exhibits and offering new chances to see painting by such masters as Titian and Caravaggio.

Katherine J. Hoving, a former Washington lobbyist who now is spokeswoman for the Greater Williamsburg Chamber & Tourism Alliance, said she no longer feels she has to go to Washington for the performing and visual arts.

"On any given day, I'm not able to do as much as I'd like to do," she said.

To help get the word out about what's available, the tourism department recently has created a Discover the Arts in Williamsburg map that shows the way to more than 50 galleries, art studios, museums and stores.

The region also has nightspots that offer live jazz, blues and rock, but not a citylike profusion. Brad Squires, a gourmet-shop owner who ran a popular local record store for years, said he has to travel to Richmond, Norfolk or even bigger cities for real metropolitan nightlife.

But he doesn't have any urge to move away.

"I still love the place," he said.