Tlaquepaque Is the Place to Be for Día De Muertos
© Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0
Already underway as of yesterday, Tlaquepaque’s festival in honor of Día de Muertos, the 5th Festival de Muertos, promises to be something not to be missed, if you’re in the area. Most of the activities really began today in earnest, and the festival will encompass the entirety of the celebration, through the 2nd of November. You can expect to find related art, processions, performances and more over the next few days at a variety of locations, including Tlaquepaque’s commercial center Forum Tlaquepaque [map], the municipality’s Jardín Hidalgo [map], and right smack in the streets. Below we have a link to the full schedule and some notes on it that you should take into account to get the most enjoyment out of the festival.
The schedule itself comes in Spanish in PDF format. On the first page you’ll find all the events scheduled at the Forum Tlaquepaque only for all days of the festival. We assume that the commercial center was a major sponsor, hence their positioning in the program. As for today, October 30th, events have been taking place since 2pm and will conclude with a theatrical staging scheduled for 8pm. Tomorrow, activities will begin at 2:30pm with the last activity scheduled for 7:30pm. Sunday, activities begin at 3pm with the last scheduled for 8pm, and Monday sees activities begin again at 3pm with the last one scheduled for 7pm. Events run the gamut from musical performances to ballet and belly dancing to theatrical pieces.
The rest of the program is laid out by day, with multi-day activities being listed last in the final column on the second page of the PDF. Some of you may even want to start there as you go about planning your visit. In general, activities not taking place at Forum Tlaquapaque begin as early as 9am (altar visits) and are scheduled for as late as midnight (nighttime tours). On this second page of the program you will find an even more diverse arrangement of events to sample, really too many for us to list here (approximately 100 are planned with the expectation of drawing some 80,000 visitors this year).
One thing you may find a bit tedious is that you may have to use a site such as Google Maps to find the locations of the activities as the program doesn’t offer much detail in that department (or then again you could just head to the centro and wander around). What we can tell you so that you can orient yourself a bit is that Jardín Hidalgo [map], C.C. El Refugio [map] and the closed section of Calle Juarez (see red segment in embedded map below) are common spots playing host to the medley of cultural events. The embedded map below also lists parking and access routes.
In closing, keep in mind that while this is a celebration full of color and life and enjoyable activities, it is also a somber time for many families that have lost loved ones. If you visit any of the cemeteries, you will see families gathered around tombstones, for instance, remembering and honoring those who have past. Please be respectful in your photo-taking and general participation.
