EXPO New Mexico Flea Market

At seven on Saturday and Sunday mornings the EXPO New Mexico Flea Market opens on the state fairgrounds at Central Avenue and San Pedro Drive in Albuquerque. Shoppers on foot pay two dollars at the pedestrian gates on Central. Drivers come in through Gate 3, at San Pedro and Copper, and pay by the carload. Some weekends not every gate is open, because other events are under way on the grounds. EXPO New Mexico runs the market and counts thousands of patrons and hundreds of vendors every weekend. Its staff put the number of sellers on a given weekend at about 200, each on a space of roughly 18 by 22 feet.

The aisles turn up turquoise and other gemstones, fresh produce, metal art, handmade wooden bowls, candies and specialty treats, and toys, blankets, sunglasses, and boots, both used and new. On one very warm Saturday the market’s own staff walked the rows eating a purchase of dehydrated Skittles. Market rules bar counterfeit goods, firearms and ammunition, and the sale of pets, and sellers may not work the parking lots. Dogs may come along on a leash. The grounds are non-smoking, and the Lost & Found is kept in the Flea Market office.

Comic books, Frito pies, and a band on the lot

Some vendors are new to the market. Others have held their places for years. Jesse Fox, a Vietnam veteran, has sold comic books there for just shy of two decades. He started with one box and now sets out rows of popular and collectible issues. According to EXPO’s blog, he “loves it when their eyes get big because they find a comic book they’ve been searching out for years.” Over that time he has come to count many of the other long-term vendors as good friends.

In the mornings the Tostadas food truck sells fresh coffee and breakfast burritos. By lunch the orders run to teriyaki chicken bowls, Frito pies, and tostadas, with snow cones and agua frescas in the summer months. CC’s concessions keeps fair food going in the off-season: corn dogs, hot dogs, burgers, and funnel cakes.

From spring through summer, market management hires local bands to play on the grounds. Recent acts have included the Tub Thumpers, the Mango Cakes, Michael Rascon, the Chris Ravin Duo, and Daniel Rivera. In the weeks before the State Fair, the fair mascots Phil and Phyllis have come through the market.

The market has also served as a collection point. When wildfires displaced many residents of Ruidoso and Mescalero, EXPO New Mexico worked with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture and Houston Auto to take donations at the market. A shopper who brought one of the requested items for the evacuees got in free.

Twenty-two years without a fair

The market sits on grounds built for the fair. That fair began in the fall of 1881 as the Territorial Fair and took the name State Fair in 1913. Its first grounds were in Old Town, where, by the account of Visit Albuquerque, locals flocked for modest attractions. In 1916, with World War I and economic distress, the fair closed, and for 22 years there was none. Visit Albuquerque dates its return to 1938, on 236 acres at Central Avenue and San Pedro Drive. The Living New Deal gives 1937 as the year the fairgrounds opened at the current location and 1938 as the year the buildings were completed.

That work came through the Works Progress Administration and other work relief programs. “Wilfred Stedham designed the grandstand, paddock, track and clubhouses as a part of this New Deal Project,” Kathryn Flynn wrote in a 1995 survey of New Deal sites in New Mexico. The Living New Deal adds that the exterior walls, gates, and landscaping should probably be credited to New Deal programs as well.

The tower at the Central Avenue gate

The landmark tower on the Central Avenue side, where walk-up shoppers now enter, also dates to 1938. For the Route 66 Centennial it was renovated and given a new Route 66 neon sign. Its designer goes unnamed in the record. In 2016 a reader of the Living New Deal, Michael Henry Perlin, asked who had drawn it and wrote: “Its classic Spanish Pueblo Revival Style reminds me of John Gaw Meem’s work.”

In 1960 the fair’s organizers settled on September as its fixed month. The flea market runs almost every weekend of the year, weather permitting, and gives way to the fair. The 2026 fair ran September 10 through 20, and the 2027 fair is set for September 9 through 19.

Bonds for a reimagined fairgrounds

EXPO New Mexico is a state agency that operates as an enterprise fund, raising its own revenues with a small amount of state money for capital improvements. Its general manager is Dan Mourning. On February 6, 2026, the New Mexico State Senate approved $92 million in bonds for a project called Fairgrounds Reimagined. Senate Bill 48, authorizing the bonding for pre-development, then passed the House. The project’s planners describe the parcel as 250 acres and say redevelopment will reach the surrounding communities, among them the International District. “We are called to think big. Future generations will judge us harshly if we think small in this endeavor,” Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said. An opinion piece the project reposted lists questions still open, including “housing density, park size and whether the State Fair stays or moves.” At one State Fair, nearly 2,000 individuals and families stopped at the project’s table on the fair’s Main Street to say what they wanted in a planned eight-acre park along Central Avenue.