The Ultimate Santa Fe Events Calendar
Visiting Santa Fe this year? Here’s your month-by-month guide to the richest cultural celebrations on offer in The City Different and environs.
✭The starred options represent our top picks.
FEBRUARY
Santa Fe Film Festival
Delight in 10 days of film screenings, panels, workshops and parties. The Santa Fe Film Festival accepts a range of film submissions while also highlighting local filmmakers and the state’s cultural diversity.
Santa Fe Restaurant Week
The City Different offers world-class dining, so if you’re here in the dead of winter, Restaurant Week is a no-brainer. Hit up primo eateries like Sazon or lower-key mainstays like The Shed for tantalizing prix fixe menus and decadent discounts. Did someone say half-off margaritas?
APRIL
Pilgrimage to Chimayo
Each year in advance of Good Friday, tens of thousands of faithful make their way on foot through the byways of the Sangre de Christo Mountains to Santuario de Chimayo, a tiny Catholic Church famed for the healing properties of its holy dirt. Visitors can join los peregrinaciones, or cheer them on as they trek.
MAY
Native Treasures Art Market & Auction
A more intimate gathering than August’s Indian Market, Native Treasures features museum-quality native-made artwork. One hundred percent or sales proceeds go to artists. Entry fees help support the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.
JUNE
Rodeo de Santa Fe
High desert scrub brush and sweeping mountain vistas make a fitting backdrop to the ropin’ and ridin’ of Santa Fe’s preeminent cowboy competition. The event draws as many as 500 entrants, including some of the world’s best.
Festival Flamenco Albuquerque
Albuquerque is home to one of the most important Flamenco communities outside of Spain, so it’s worth it to make the hourlong trek from Santa Fe for this yearly event. Check out one of the nearly two dozen performances, or sign up to hone your own skills at one of the festival’s workshops or classes.
JULY
✭ International Folk Art Market
Handloomed sarees from India. Wood-carved Carpathian icons. Geometric-patterned textiles hand-dyed by an Amazonian craftswoman. These are just a few of the wares you’ll find on sale at Santa Fe’s world-renowned International Folk Art Market. Support native artists from around the world while taking your home décor to the next level.
Traditional Spanish Market
Summertime in Santa Fe means markets galore. Meander the narrow streets near Santa Fe’s historic plaza for a peak at traditional Hispanic art, including furniture, icons, wood carvings, textiles, jewelry and pottery.
Contemporary Hispanic Market
More pottery, textiles, jewelry and more – this time blending old processes, styles and art forms with new.
AUGUST
✭ Indian Market
Don’t miss this art-lover’s dreamscape. Each year, about 100,000 visitors from near and far descend on Santa Fe to ogle – and purchase – the awe-provoking work of some of the Southwest’s most treasured native artists. It’s the largest Native arts show in the world.
Parade of Homes
With its warm wood-beamed ceilings, adobe walls and kiva fireplaces, Santa Fe architecture has a style all its own. Parade of Homes is your chance to peek behind the doors of some of the City Different’s most lavish residences.
Santa Fe Beer & Food Festival
If you’re a sucker for a cold one on a hot day, this festival is for you. Sample local pours and delicious eats at this newbie festival, which also features local arts & crafts vendors, live music and beer-making demonstrations.
SEPTEMBER
✭ Zozobra
Here’s one you won’t find anywhere else. Jot down your past year’s woes on a piece of paper, and send them up in flames along with a 50-ft tall marionette effigy named Old Man Gloom. This cathartic event draws thousands and is a local favorite.
Fiesta de Santa Fe
This centuries-old celebration of Hispanic culture (It started in 1712!) kicks off with the burning of Zozobra (see above) and continues with nine days of parades, music and merriment to commemorate Don Diego de Vargas’s reoccupation of Santa Fe in 1692. Viva la Fiesta!
✭ Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown
The quintessential Santa Fe-flavor battle royale. Watch – and, for a well-worth-it fee, taste – as the state’s top chefs duke it out to prove their spice-topped sandwich packs the most flavorful punch.
Wine & Chile Fiesta
World-class wines, meet world-class spice. This five-day event showcases Santa Fe’s top-notch cuisine, with tasting events, wine pairings, cooking demonstrations and more.
OCTOBER
✭ Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta
Rise before dawn, make the one-hour trek to Albuquerque, and turn your eyes skyward to watch hundreds of rainbow-hued hot air balloons float through the blue as the sun rises over the Sandia Mountains. Crowds can be dense, but this is a bucket-list experience.
Santa Fe International Film Festival
Hailed by IndieWire Magazine as “a young Sundance,” this film fest features everything from Academy Award-winning films to indie gems.
NOVEMBER
Santa Fe Plaza Tree Lighting
Kick off the holiday season the weekend after Thanksgiving with this charming local tradition. Watch as the tree-lined plaza lights up in Christmas colors. Don’t forget to take in the sights of adobe walls bedecked in glowing farolitos. Check local news sites for dates and times.
DECEMBER
✭ Farolito Walk
Also known as luminarias, farolitos are candle-lit brown paper bags. Grab a hot chocolate and join the throngs on Canyon Road, Santa Fe’s famous gallery-lined arts district, and take in the sight of buildings and sidewalks aglow in the light of thousands of tiny lanterns.