3rd Annual New Mexico Brew Fest & Music Showcase: October 6 Enjoy a full day of beer tastings from more than 20 local and regional breweries in a beautiful, family-friendly picnic setting.
Santero Market: October 6-7 This popular event that showcases traditional Spanish religious art continues as the 11th Annual Santero Market at San Felipe de Neri Parish presents 40 artists from throughout New Mexico. Live entertainment begins at 9 am Saturday and continues until 5 pm with popular mariachi, marimba and traditional dance.
Big Top Chocolate Festival: October 6-7 Come enjoy over 25 of the finest chocolatiers, coffee roasters, bakers, baristas and more from throughout New Mexico! There will be candies, truffles, coffees, teas, cupcakes, donuts, sweets and much more, including the world’s largest chocolate hot air balloon! Come enjoy the live music and family entertainment, all a short walk or free shuttle away from Balloon fiesta field! Tickets include admission to the museum.
KayDee Balloon Fiesta Arts & Crafts Show: October 6-7 Featuring local artists and craftsmen that create beautiful handmade items. Our show features fiber art, paintings, photography, glass art, jewelry, wood working and so much more. The show is free to the public. The event is juried to ensure high quality items and a wide variety of textiles.
Rio Grande Arts & Crafts Festival-Balloon Fiesta Show: October 6-7, 13-14 This highly-ranked, juried show features the work of hundreds of the nation’s most outstanding artists and craftspeople. Visitors can shop and purchase directly from the artists, and also enjoy the food court, complete with wine sampling. There are also artists’ demonstrations, children’s activities and a variety of entertainment, making it a fun event for the entire family.
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Bike Tour: October 6-14 Participants will travel to the Fiesta by bicycle along the acclaimed ‘Paseo del Bosque’ bike trail, which offers a perspective of the Dawn Patrol event from the Rio Grande River wilderness seldom seen by visitors to the city.
Float the Fiesta: October 6-7, 10-11, 13-17 The best seat imaginable for Albuquerque’s annual International Balloon Fiesta! You’ll float along the river, far from the massive crowds, as hundreds of balloons soar overhead!
Workshop with Nikon International Photographer Jay Miller: October 9-10 Jay Miller has been a professional aviation photographer for over forty years. During that time, he has photographed just about everything that flies - from balloons and sailplanes to supersonic fighters and Space Shuttles. Don't miss this chance to learn from the best.
Balloon Fiesta Movie Night-Around the World in 80 Days: October 10 Enjoy this classic movie at the Albuquerque Balloon Museum. In this adaptation of Jules Verne's novel, a Victorian Englishman Phileas Fogg accepts a challenge from his fellow members at the Reform Club and sets of prove that you can travel around the world in a mind-boggling 80 days.
Fall Indian Art Market: October 6-7 & 13-14 Artists, retailers, wholesalers, museums and collectors at the world's largest Native American trade show. Buy direct from more than 50 Native American artisans.
Balloon Fiesta Week in Old Town: October 8-14 Old Town is a very popular destination for Balloon Fiesta attendees, and not only will they discover the unique ambiance, delicious traditional and inventive foods and great shopping, the entire week will be filled with live entertainment. From mariachi to blues, Native American dancers to pipe and drum, Irish tunes and tango—the programming will have something for everyone.
10th Annual Southwest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival: September 28-October 7 One of New Mexico’s largest film festivals and one of the top GLBT film festivals in the Southwest. Now in its tenth year, the Albuquerque-based festival is dedicated to showcasing queer cinema in an attempt to highlight the richness of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience.
Gruet Winery Harvest Festival: October 12-13 Celebrate the harvest with us and enjoy grape stomping, live music, a host of arts and crafts vendors and wine and bear tastings.
Harvest Festival: October 13-14 Come to the Botanic Garden's Heritage Farm for the seventh annual Harvest Festival. Sample the smells, sounds and tastes of the fall harvest!
Taste New Mexico: October 13-14 Enjoy the aromas and flavors of New Mexico’s favorite eats during the Taste of New Mexico 2nd annual event, “Back for Seconds!” More than two dozen restaurateurs, breweries, and wineries will take over Civic Plaza for this two-day autumn event. Offering a range from barbecue to sushi, burgers to vegan treats, desserts, and of course red and green chile!
Festival of Flight: October 13-14 Let your imagination soar at the Festival of Flight. From birds to butterflies, kites to canines, they will all be aloft at the Albuquerque Balloon Museum as part of this year’s special programing during Balloon Fiesta. Hands on interactive flying fun and education for the whole family. Learn about: paragliders, hang gliders, hot air balloons, RC airplanes and yes, even flying dogs. Local Balloon Artists will attempt to construct a large hot air balloon out of latex balloons!
5th Annual Local Food Festival & Field Day: October 14 The Local Food Festival and Field Day is an annual event highlighting local food and agriculture in our region. Enjoy a variety of local group, organizations and activities including: workshops and lectures about gardening/farming, seed saving, New Mexico's farming history and culture, and more!
Rio Grande Community Farm Maize Maze: September 15-October 31 A family-oriented, affordable, outdoor activity that allows you to wander in a field of corn as you make your way through a maze.
Downtown Grower's Market & Festival: Every Saturday through October; Features 100% locally grown New Mexico produce.
ABQ Trolley Best of ABQ City Tour: Every Tuesday through Sunday through October; Enjoy the best of Albuquerque on a 66-minute tour from a completely-custom, uniquely-Albuquerque, open-air trolley.
EXPO New Mexico Flea Market: Every Saturday and Sunday throughout the year; Featuring hundreds of vendors with tens of thousands of unique and one-of-a-kind items to choose from.
Ghost Tour of Old Town: Nightly at 8pm, reservations required; Albuquerque Legends, folklore, ghost stories and history come to life as you depart on an intriguing excursion through 300 years of haunted history.
History, Legends & Lore Old Town Tour: Monday-Wednesday and Friday- Saturday throughout the year. Uncover Old Town's unusual and well-hidden architectural details. Imagine early merchants as they traveled the Santa Fe Trail for trade. Embark on a 75-minute walking tour which takes you through the streets and alleys of one of the oldest towns in North America.
Daily Bike Tour of the Bosque River Trail: 1pm & 3pm, daily.
Our signature scenic tour rides alongside the famous Rio Grande River
for approx. 2 hours. Riders will enjoy views
of the Botanic Gardens, the Albuquerque Aquarium, and the Rio Grande
Zoo, with a brief stop at the historic Tingley Beach.
Museum Exhibits
Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum:
A Century of High Flying: Science, Space and Sport: Tuesday-Sunday through December 2012 Some artifacts included in the exhibit are instruments from the Cold War reconnaissance project Moby Dick in which balloons were used to take high altitude photographs over Soviet sites. There will also be an original photo of the Graf Zeppelin flying over Columbus, New Mexico while completing its first round-the-world flight. The role of balloons in remote sensing and astronomical research in New Mexico will also be part of the exhibit.
Aerial Perspectives: Silk Batiks by Mary Edna Fraser: Tuesday-Sunday through October 21, 2012 This wonderful new aerial art exhibit comprises a series of narrative landscapes inspired by the terraqueous reaches of the continent, where realms of earth, sea and sky converge. Mary Edna Fraser’s life’s work is from an aerial perspective, a view of the earth she chooses to transcribe onto silk using dyes in the ancient medium of batik. Her beautiful silk batik art will be hung under the “bridge” at the Balloon Museum.
Mexican Space Collective-Ulises & Antony Nevin: Tuesday-Sunday through January 2013 Juan José Díaz Infante and the Mexican Space Collective are featured with an installation about their project, Ulises I, which involves the artists building a satellite and launching it into space, after which it will play an algorithmic opera, making the satellite a musical instrument. Antony Nevin’s BELUGA is an installation that invites participants to transform their experience of human interaction into visible light and movement. The Belugas are winged blimps floating in a space, which, through the use of embedded sensors, are aware of their surroundings, people and conversations.
New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science:
Dinosaur Century: January-December 28, 2012 Celebrate New Mexico's 100 years of statehood with the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Centennial Exhibit. This will be an exhibit like no other--it will grow with each month of the centennial year.
Dawn of the Dinosaurs: New Mexico’s Triassic Period: Permanent Exhibition The only Triassic Exhibit Hall in North America is dedicated to the plants and animals of the Triassic Period in New Mexico and the world.
National Hispanic Cultural Center:
Nuestros Maestros: The Legacy of Abad E. Lucero; Tuesday-Sunday through January 1, 2013 Abad Lucero (1909-2009) was a renaissance man in New Mexico Art History. The exhibition features paintings, sculpture, and furniture by the artist and highlights his mastery of beloved New Mexican art forms.
The Albuquerque Museum of Art & History:
Albuquerque Along the Rio Grande: Tuesday through Sunday through September 2013 For more than one hundred and twenty centuries, humans have lived in the region now known as the central Rio Grande Valley. When Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s army camped in the area in 1540-1542, they encountered an indigenous Tiwa-speaking native culture well adapted to a high desert environment and battling to retain its autonomy and cultural beliefs. For the next four centuries and especially after the founding of La Villa de Alburquerque in 1706, Spain, Mexico and ultimately the United States governed a population focused on survival, weathering harsh weather extremes, and building a unique economy based on agriculture, ranching, weaving, and merchant trade. Change came quickly after the railroad arrived in 1880 and especially after World War II, leading to huge population growth and making Albuquerque the creative and diverse city it is today.
ISEA 2012: Machine Wilderness: Tuesday-Sunday through January 2013 In the fall of 2012, a group of New Mexico arts organizations will present ISEA 2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness, a symposium and series of events and exhibitions highlighting art and technology. The large-scale, multi-site, international exhibition accompanying this project will feature artworks that explore perceptions of a larger universe, space travel, and the science of space and the cosmos. Artworks in all media will combine art, science, and technology, demonstrating the role that art can play in re-invisioning the world.
African American Art in the 20th Century: Tuesday-Sunday through January 2013 The exhibition presents 100 paintings, sculptures, and photographs by 43 African American artists from the premier collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, more than half of which are being shown for the first time. The exhibition features artists who came to prominence during the period bracketed by the Harlem renaissance and the Civil Rights movement. Some trained in the country's most prestigious art schools, others in the ateliers of Paris. Many were teachers; others worked at whatever jobs allowed them time to create. All participated in the multivalent dialogues about art, black identity, and the rights of the individual that engaged American society throughout the 20th Century.
100 Years of State & Federal Policy and it’s Impact on Pueblo Nations: Monday-Sunday through February 2013 This historic exhibition examines 100 years of State and Federal policy (1912-2012) and its impact on Pueblo communities. The exhibition personalizes our Pueblo Indian history by drawing connections between the human experience and those enacted policies.
A:shiwi A:wan Ulohnanne-The Zuni World: Monday-Sunday through May 2013 The A:shiwi Map Art Project is an art, language and place name project all in one. The project is intended to be a tool to help Zunis connect to places through artistic renderings of the Zuni cultural landscape. A group of Zuni advisors worked to first decide what not to map, then what would be culturally appropriate to include on the maps. The paintings have been printed as full color posters with place names added.
Indian Dances & Artist Demonstrations: October 7-12, 2012 Traditional Indian dances and artist demonstrations.Weekdays at 10am, 11am, 1pm and 2pm. Weekends at 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm.
Transforming the Human Spirit: From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace: Monday-Sunday through October 2012
The exhibit is a production of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a lay Buddhist movement of 12 million people around the world that promotes peace, culture and education through personal change and social contribution. The exhibit poses a number of ethical questions for the viewer to contemplate: how do we ensure freedom from fear? What can we do to promote human security? How do humans become more peaceful? Visitors will view multiple panels, ranging from Ensuring Human Security to Global Efforts for Peace. Each panel asks the reader to imagine a world where the interconnectedness of humans across the globe is paramount and a peaceful world is possible.
Nano: Monday-Sunday through November 2012 The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History is now the place for families to learn all about materials science. “Nano,” is an exhibit about big ideas that come from the small world of nanoscience. “Nano: Imagine and Discover a World You Can’t See” is designed for families and is comprised of several stations with hands-on activities that demonstrate the properties of nanoscience.