Annual Events
Balloon Fiesta
If you grew up here, you remember Balloon Fiesta as a swell of full hotels and impossibly dense traffic. While most locals try to avoid it, a certain giddiness is unavoidable when you get right up under those balloons and feel the flames, especially during the Special Shapes Glowdeo.
Festival Flamenco Internacional
It’s said that outside of Spain, ABQ is the premiere Flamenco hot spot, in terms of both training and performers. After seeing the performances or working with any of the Institute’s instructors, you’ll believe it! Classes start all the time, so if inclined, get your attitude on.
McCall's Pumpkin Patch and Haunted Farm
Owned and oped by a married couple and their two kids, McCall’s grows various things on their farm throughout the year, but when October comes, it’s the pumpkins you’re going to care about. Oh, and the haunted farm and haunted corn maze, too.
Old Town Ghost Tours
An 8:00 or 10:00pm tour of Burque’s cheesiest quadrangle makes a surprisingly good history lesson, and gives the requisite chill. The guides really know their stories, and offer a healthy dose of skepticism with their firm belief in spirits.
Revolutions Theatre Festival
The best theatre festival in New Mexico. Admittedly, yes, the only theatre festival in New Mexico. Tricklock pulls in incredibly talented, out-of-the-ordinary acts from the world over (Mexico to Poland), with an equally dazzling spread of themes, genres and talent.
St. George Grecian Festival
Some believe the most notable Albuquerque event the first week in October is that Balloon Thing. But true Burqueños know the real event is the Greek Festival.
SW Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
Albuquerque is a city obsessed with film. We love making them, we love seeing them. We love sexy films, we love foreign films, and we love films that make you think. So it’s no surprise we love the annual Southwest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.
The State Fair
September inexorably brings dos cosas to our chile-smellin’ city: sticky house flies and the State Fair. Touted as “all the holidays rolled into one,” the Fair offers overpriced food-that-should-never-have-been-fried and sometimes impressive 4-H exhibits to farm-starved city folk.
Zozobra's Wife Burning
Think the Santa Fe Fiesta is the only disappointment-stuffed immolation of the year? Fuck that. And fuck Santa Fe. A tradition known only among the truly Burqueño, is the burning of his wife.