One sure benefit of longer nights is that an evening in a theater, concert hall, restaurant, or club brings essential sparkle and shine to our lives. Put your boots on and then head into the night with us at these New Mexico winter events.
Winter Events Across New Mexico
Special Events, Festivals, & Markets
Taos Winter Wine Festival
January 29-February 2, Taos
The Taos Winter Wine Festival – three days of culinary artistry in Taos coupled with wines from wineries around the world – draws skiers and foodies alike. Enjoy over 30 national wineries partnered with the area’s best restaurants in a schedule packed with food and also wine events featuring a Reserve Tasting, chef luncheons, après ski tastings, and wine dinners.
Souper Bowl
January 31, Santa Fe Community Convention Center
February 1, Albuquerque, Roadrunner Food Bank
The annual Souper Bowls in Albuquerque and Santa Fe benefit Roadrunner Food Bank of Albuquerque and The Food Depot of Santa Fe. These signature fundraising events bring in enough money for nearly 500,000 meals each year. At each location, hungry attendees sample and vote for their favorite soups from dozens of local chefs and restaurants vying for top honors in various categories like savory, vegetarian, and overall/people’s choice best soup. This family-friendly event promises a delicious experience for attendees of all ages, and sells out in both locations. Albuquerque – rrfb.org/souper-bowl Santa Fe – thefooddepot.org/events-and-outreach
Mardi Gras in the Mountains
February 12-17, Red River
Mardi Gras New Mexico style means the snow-capped mountains of Red River and a unique blend of traditions that draws crowds from across the country. Dress up and celebrate a good time during the Grand Ball. Experience something new with the burning of the Loup-garu—a spirit that removes your troubles and worries for the coming year. Prepare your palate for Cajun cook-offs and crawfish boils. Bundle up and watch the annual Mardi Gras Main Street Parade.
Gathering of Quilts
February 27-28, Truth or Consequences
See beautiful new work by local quilters as well as historic quilts at the annual Gathering of Quilts. Upwards of a hundred quilts are on view every year, and anyone is welcome to enter a quilt for exhibit – antique to newly made.
National Fiery Foods & BBQ Show
February 27-March 1, Albuquerque, Sandia Resort & Casino
Sip, dip, and sample more than 1,000 different products from Scovie Award winners from around world at the annual Fiery Foods and BBQ Show at Sandia Resort and Casino. The Scovie scale measures spice level, ranging from zero units for a bell pepper to 2.6 million units for Pepper X, judged the world’s hottest.
Santa Fe Restaurant Week
March 2-11, Santa Fe
Ten days of meals and deals encourages locals and visitors to experience the city’s remarkable cuisine during an otherwise slow time of year. Santa Fe Restaurant Week has become the city’s premier winter dining event. Founder Michele Ostrove and partner Larry West have slowly expanded both the list of participating restaurants (38 in 2025), and lodging partners, to provide a complete experience during the shoulder season. Most participating restaurants offer a prix fixe lunch, dinner, or both, consisting of three/four courses at a value price less than that same meal would cost ordered à–la carte. Bon appétit!
Performance: Music, Theater, Dance, Opera
AMP Concerts
AMP Concerts hosts inspiring arts programming throughout New Mexico, plus a portion of all AMP ticket sales goes to fund free community concerts, workshops, school programs, as well as artist residencies.
January 24: Dust City Opera: Sadness, Madness & Mayhem III
February 4 & 5: Kalos
March 16: Lúnasa
The Lensic Presents and Lensic 360
Whether shows are in the San Franscico Street historic theater or out in the Santa Fe, Albuquerque, or Taos communities, the Lensic Performing Arts Center’s Lensic Presents and Lensic 360 series bring outstanding film, theater, opera, dance, music, and more to the state.
January 27: Blade Runner Live
January 28: Don Broco (Lensic 360)
January 31: Joan Osborn & KT Tunstall
February 5: Storm Large
February 21: The Ten Tenors
February 22: The Okee Dokee Brothers
February 25: bbno$ (Lensic 360)
March 1: Trekking Mexico
March 2: The Strumbellas (Lensic 360)
March 6: The Assad Brothers
March 11: American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
March 13: The Bad Plus, Chris Potter & Craig Taborn (the comma is in right place)
March 15: Lúnasa
Santa Fe Symphony
The 2024–2025 Season of The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus marks 41 years of performing live classical music in The City Different.
January 18: Operatic Favorites
February 15: Romance & Rhapsody
Santa Fe Pro Musica
Since 1980, Santa Fe Pro Musica has brought together outstanding musicians to inspire and educate audiences of all ages through the performance of great music.
January 25: Winter Orchestra Concert
February 8: Cuarteto Casals
February 22: Brooklyn Rider
March 14 & 15: Spring Orchestra Concert
The MET Live in HD
See world-class opera at the Lensic as it is streamed from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
March 21: Tristan und Isolde
New Mexico Philharmonic
The New Mexico Philharmonic enriches lives through musical excellence, educational opportunities, and community engagement.
January 24: Symphonic Dances
February 6: Beethoven, Britten & Respighi
February 8: Power Concert: Meet the Strings
February 28: Pictures at an Exhibition
March 13 & 15: Carnival of the Animals
Opera Southwest
Opera Southwest produces quality, professional, enjoyable, and also accessible opera in an intimate setting at venues around Albuquerque for audiences of all ages.
February 22-March 1: Aida
Popejoy Hall
Albuquerque’s Popejoy Hall hosts touring Broadway shows, symphony concerts, musical soloists and artists of international caliber, world-renowned ballet and modern dance companies, as well as noted speakers from a broad spectrum of disciplines.
January 25: Sing-A-Long Broadway
February 3-8: A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical
February 14: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
February 15: Glenn Miller Orchestra
February 22: The Ten Tenors
February 27: Cirque Mechanics
March 1: The Mikado
March 3: Peppa Pig: My First Concert
March 13-15: The Book of Mormon
March 17: Shamrock Tenors
March 20: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Museums, Lectures, & Cultural Happenings
Douglas Miles: Always & Forever
Through February 8, IAIA Museum of contemporary Native Arts
Skateboards are moving canvases, as presented by Miles—a painter, printmaker and photographer, and founder of Apache Skateboards as well as the Apache Skate Team. Dynamic and demonstrating the sovereignty of motion, the exhibit also features Miles’s installation You’re Skating on Native Land.
Gustav Baumann: The Artist’s Environment
Through February 22, New Mexico Museum of Art
Gustave Baumann first came to New Mexico in 1918 and has since become one of the most beloved artists and cultural figures in Santa Fe. Best known for his enchanting woodblock prints, Baumann was a prodigious artist and creative who left behind an enormous legacy that also included painting, sculpture, drawing, marionettes, and furniture. This comprehensive study of Baumann’s artistic output offers a close look at how he engaged the physical, cultural, and artistic environment in which he worked. Surveying all periods of his artistic career, and also organized thematically, this exhibition will critically examine key concepts at play in Baumann’s artwork through a variety of lenses.
Trinities of Heaven and Earth
Through March 7, New Mexico State University Art Museum, Las Cruces
Trinities of Heaven and Earthdraws some 200 retablos from the New Mexico State University Art Museum’s extensive collection of over 2,200 such objects for this exhibition exploring the spiritual as well as cultural importance of these sacred images. Retablos, small devotional paintings traditionally displayed in homes, served as vital expressions of Catholic faith and values within the household. The imagery of the Holy Family conveys blessings related to family life, while depictions of the Holy Trinity invoke divine guidance.
Truths Be Told: Artists Activate Traditions
Through January 27, 2027, Museum of International Folk Art
Truths Be Told: Artists Activate Traditionshighlights a dozen international artists who engage with folk traditions from their respective communities in order to critique social inequities, reverse erasure, and be a catalyst for social change. By pushing the boundaries of longstanding ceramic, basketry, as well as textile practices, regalia, or song, these artists propose more complex narratives of how traditions empower communities.
Makowa: The Worlds Above Us
Through August 17, 2026, Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
Makowa takes an expansive view of the worlds above: constellations, birds, eclipses, clouds, astronauts, and more, over day and night as well as throughout the seasons and eras. The exhibit will juxtapose artistic renderings of celestial events with cutting-edge telescopic imaging. It will draw together stories about how stars came to be where they are and also how stars help people know where they are. The exhibit asks us to participate in a long lineage of observers who have made sense of the worlds above us. Night photography, pottery, textiles, interviews, and maps, as well as a small planetarium experience, are among the exhibit components.
Lucy Lippard: Notes From the Radical Whirlwind
Through August 9, 2026, Vladem Contemporary
A resident of New Mexico since 1993, writer, activist, and curator Lucy Lippard’s focus on the local has prompted exhibitions, panels, letters to the editor, and books exploring the histories and archeological landscapes of the state. In 1999, the New Mexico Museum of Art was the beneficiary of over 500 artworks, art books, posters, political buttons, as well as activist ephemera. These objects, which chart Lippard’s considerable activities and consequential personal relationships, were gifted to her over the years by friends, partners, collaborators, and also hopeful artists. This exhibition features a selection of objects from the collection, spanning two galleries at the Vladem Contemporary, and traces Lippard’s prolific career, honoring her contribution to the art world.
Spotlight Events
Dust City Opera: Sadness, Madness, & Mayhem III
January 24, El Rey Theater, Albuquerque
Returning for its third year, a bigger, better, and bolder Sadness, Madness, & Mayhem costume ball, concert, and circus party moves to the Historic El Rey Theater in downtown Albuquerque. The annual event put on by Albuquerque-based alt-rock orchestra Dust City Opera and joined by long time collaborators Giovanni String Quartet and Movement Caravan Circus Troupe, promises an otherworldly extravaganza of music, carnival acts, turn of the 19th century fashion, as well as mystical entertainment.
“Moving the show to the El Rey gives us space to house all of the performers in one area, so guests will see everything in one place,” says Sydney Counce, Dust City Opera manager. “Everything will be happening all around you all at once, with music on the stage, and jugglers and stilt walkers amongst the crowd. It’s not a regular concert, but an immersive experience.”
Costumes play a big part in that immersive experience. Counce describes it as having a haunted carnival vibe, with guests leaning into a Mardi Gras meets haunted house vibe with elaborate masks and fashions. There’s a VIP after party with cocktails as well as swag from local businesses, too.
“January feels like good time for this, as there isn’t much going on this time of year and people are looking for something to do after the holidays. It’s cold and dreary, which adds to the drama of the event,” Counce continues, explaining the name of the event comes from themes of the Dust City Opera quintet’s music – heaviness, loss, trauma and hardships, but in a humorous, bizarre and feel-good way. “Folks who come out say it’s the most fun, most memorable thing they’ve ever attended. It’s a unique, unexpected experience.”
Cara and Diego Romero: Tales of Futures Past
Through February 8, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque
A dynamic new exhibition combines printmaking, photography, and ceramics under the common themes of identity, time, and also evolution. Cara and Diego Romero: Tales of Futures Past features the work of photographer Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) and potter Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo). The married artists focus on the artistic dialogue between their mediums in this traveling exhibition organized by the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa. The Albuquerque leg of the show will be augmented by additional pieces from New Mexico museums.
The exhibition’s 35 works (16 of Cara’s photographs, 15 pottery pieces by Diego, and several collaborative works) explore the complexities as well as the evolutionary nature of Indigenous identity. Together, the Romeros fuse elements of popular culture, ancestral traditions, and the supernatural to portray protagonists powered by their Indigeneity as they, and the world, continue to change. Through their visionary works, the Romeros examine rewriting historical narratives, the power of Indigeneity, environmental racism, and also ancestral evolution.
What the Show is About
“There’s great humor and sarcasm in this serious show. But it’s not a solemn show. These are powerful ideas that pertain to rewriting historical narratives, advocating environmental consciousness, and indigeneity, while also disarming in its humor and lush colors. It’s a visual delight but also an intellectual deep dive,” says William Gassaway, Assistant Curator of Art at the Albuquerque Museum.
“This material and these artists are not new to the Museum or New Mexico, and the set of ideas in the exhibit are some we’ve has been trying to unpack over time. Cara’s work especially emphasizes indigenous futurism, while Diego comments on the ludicrous conspiracy theories surrounding the ancient Maya and alien influences on them. We’d love visitors to get comfortable constantly shifting in time – backward to the Pueblo Revolt [1680] to present time and into an imagined, hopeful, and desirable future.”
Very Large Array Spring Open House
April 18, Plains of San Agustin, outside Socorro
The winding road west from Socorro opens suddenly onto the open Plains of San Agustin, where off in the distance sit the 27 dish antennas (plus one spare) that make up the Very Large Array. As the premier radio telescope installation in the world, each antenna is 82 feet across, positioned along a Y-shaped track that, at its most extended, is 22 miles across.
Since its opening in 1980, the VLA has had a major impact on nearly every branch of astronomy. The iconic image of the dishes pointed toward the heavens is well-known from the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster as a radio astronomer searching for signs of extraterrestrial life. Standing next to one of the dishes is also a thrilling part of a visit to the site. Open year-round for a $10 admission fee, twice a year (the third Saturdays of April and October) the astronomers, scientists, as well as technical staff welcome the public for free guided and self-guided tours, lectures, and demonstrations, with hands-on science activities for kids and adults, food trucks, and science-y merch.
What’s New?
New for 2026 is the completion of the next generation of radio telescope antenna, the unprecedented sensitivity as well as resolution of which will help scientists answer the questions: How do planets form? What are they made of? Do they contain the building blocks of life?
“Scientific exploration and opportunity are everywhere all around us. You don’t need to go to a giant facility in a major city to find it. We’re a cultural staple of New Mexico, so we like to have folks come see us,” says Corrina Jaramillo Feldman, the VLA’s Senior Public Information Officer. “And science doesn’t have to be inaccessible or overly complicated or exclusively academic. Anyone from any background at any point in life can learn and engage in science, right here at the VLA. We hope to make science more accessible and inspire the next generation of astronomers and scientists.”
Pack a lunch or patronize the food trucks, bring your family, and well-behaved dogs. But save room for dessert, because just a few miles beyond the installation are Pie Town and the Pie Town Pie company. Their pies are a sweet treat to finish the day.
City Different Food Tours
When visitors come to the City Different, they need to eat. Want to eat! And we residents love to eat, too, because dining in Santa Fe is always a delicious experience, especially in winter when hearty soups, stews, belly-filling New Mexican specialties, and gourmet cuisine abounds. Except for prime holiday weeks, eating out in the City Different during the winter usually means easy access to almost every restaurant, bar, and lounge.
Lauren Slaff guides the TripAdvisor top-rated Santa Fe food tours of Wander New Mexico. This former chef and food educator loves shepherding hungry locals as well as visitors around the City Different. Introducing them to the flavors of New Mexico often comes with surprising feedback, though.
The Wonders of Santa Fe
“They are often surprised that our culinary scene isn’t just New Mexican food, and also how old Santa Fe is,” she says of the 2.5 hour to half- day excursions she leads, which always sprinkles in local restaurant and cultural history. “Our tours include a downtown sip and savor with small bites, a margarita trail tour, as well as a chef-guided lunch tour complete with dessert and beverages.”
Apparently, visitors also get confused that we get winter here, and that our food isn’t TexMex doused in cheese and red sauce. They are definitely in trouble if they don’t like spicy food. But more often than not, Slaff says that visitors appreciate the cultural experience, the intimate interactions with chefs, and the inclusive, welcoming restaurant community we have. Locals can also become acquainted with restaurants, bars, wineries, and breweries that might not be on their radar.
Wander New Mexico isn’t the only culinary tour in town. Food Tour New Mexico and the Santa Fe School of Cooking, like Wander NM, focus on the downtown and Railyard areas – both walkable areas full of local flavor. Vigilante Guides’ sight-seeing tours include Santa Fe, Taos, Chimayo, Bandelier/Puye Cliff Dwellings, as well as Ghost Ranch, all with snacks, lunch, wine, and beer tastings.
Tie up your walking shoes and bring your appetite this winter, whether you’ve got guests or not!
Story by Kelly Koepke
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