Fiesta de Taos

On the weekend nearest the feast days of Santiago and Santa Ana, vendor booths ring the streets of the Taos Plaza with food, drink and curios. A stage on the plaza changes acts on the hour from midday until the plaza closes at ten at night. The 2026 Fiesta de Taos ran July 17 through 19 under a bilingual theme: “Regresando a Nuestras Raíces; El Corazón de Taos,” or “Returning to Our Roots; The Heart of Taos.” The 2025 fiestas had been held at Red Willow Park while the plaza was restored and remodeled. With the construction finished, the Fiesta Council brought the celebration back to the ground where it has historically taken place.

The Town of Taos visitor site gives the event four names: Las Fiestas de Taos, Las Fiestas de don Fernando de Taos, Las Fiestas de Santiago y Santana, and Las Fiestas de la Gente. Fiesta de Taos, Inc., and the Taos Fiesta Council stage it. The council has 25 members and about 15 auxiliary members, and it works on the fiesta year-round. Its 2026 president, Stephanie Cordova Levy, told the Taos News, “We hope to put sabor in all that we do.”

Mass, crown and procession

The first afternoon belongs to the stage. In 2026 Mariachi Paisanos de Taos opened at noon, followed by Eddie Rael, Mystic Dance, Melody Stalians, Mike Rael and Northern Revolution. At five o’clock the fiesta proper began with the Fiestas Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, one block west of the plaza. That year the council returned the Mass to that church and the queen’s coronation to the service. Parents walked their daughters into the church as their first escorts, and other escorts joined the court at the front. After the blessing by Father Peter Mgendwa, the parents crowned the queen, placed mantillas on the princesses and put sashes on their daughters. “The parents are a vital part of the girls’ roles,” Levy said. Ericalyn Gallegos Conklin was crowned 2026 Reina, and Aubrielle Montez was among her princesas.

From the church the court walks to the plaza in procession with La Conquistadora. This statue of Our Lady of the Conquest, also known as Our Lady of the Rosary, resides at the Cathedral Basilica in Santa Fe. She travels to local fiestas with an entourage called the Caballeros. The Taos News describes her as representing the wave of immigrants from Spain to New Mexico. In 2026 she wore a replica of the court’s blue outfits, broomstick skirt included. Opening ceremonies followed on the plaza at seven. The new reina spoke, and so did the 2025 Reina, Amaya Jada Jenae Cordova-Struck, while her mother, Sonya Struck, watched from the crowd. The Julian Lucero Band and Bad Boys de Taos played until the plaza closed.

The court does not end its night there. It leaves for the marchas, the traditional Northern New Mexican wedding dance, which it leads in halls and bars around the valley. The 2026 plan listed stops at the Sagebrush Inn & Suites, the Eagles Club, the Hotel Don Fernando, Hotel Willa, Daleee KTAOS and Midtown Market & Spirits in Arroyo Hondo. Visiting courts from Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Española and Chimayo came along.

Saturday on the plaza

The Children’s and Pet Parade steps off at ten from Enos Garcia Elementary School. It heads east on Don Fernando Street, enters the plaza from South Plaza Drive, circles it and returns to the school. Every entrant is under 18 and dressed in fiesta, Western or traditional Southwestern attire. Pets ride or walk in their own category. Candy is handed out rather than thrown, and every entry receives a participation ribbon. The 2026 parade featured El Viboron by Ted Egri, coordinated by Judy Esquibel of the Town of Taos.

Through the day the court mingles with the crowd. The Lions Club helps run the Tío Vivo, and the council tells visitors to bring their own chairs. In 2026 the stage carried Maggie “La Rancherita” Vigil, Antonio Reyna with Mariachi Differencia, the Legacy Band of Colorado Springs and Luisa G. From eight to ten came the Gran Baile de la Fiesta, a public dance on the plaza open to anyone, with Severo y Group Fuego.

Sunday on Paseo del Pueblo Norte

Sunday opens with a Spanish Mass at eight at San Francisco de Asís. An hour later the St. Francis Choir sings on the plaza stage. At eleven the Historical Parade leaves the Taos County Courthouse and runs north on Paseo del Pueblo Norte to the post office across from the Kachina Lodge. Judges score it on the move, with first- and second-place ribbons for floats, riders, royalty and cheer and drill teams. Taos News photographs of the 2026 parade show the Taos Tigers cheer team and the Taos Xtreme Cheer team on a float. Children rode the Taos County Sheriff’s Posse float, and Danielle Valdez, 5, waved from the back of a car. Deb Haaland, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, worked the crowd along the curb. Afterward the council thanked Taos Pueblo for joining the weekend.

The afternoon brought Severo y Group Fuego again, the Black Pearl Band and Cuarenta y Cinco. Honorees received a special presentation at half past three, and Gonzalo played until the closing ceremonies at seven.

The court’s year runs on long after the closing ceremonies. In 2026 the royalty joined the Fiestas de Chimayo on July 25 and attended Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe for the feast day. They danced with residents at Taos Healthcare, where everyone sang “Volver, Volver.” Later they rode in the Rodeo de Taos, visited the county fair and attended a royal ball in Santa Fe as guests of Don de Vargas and La Reina de Santa Fe. They led a marcha at the Santa Rosa Fiestas in Dixon to the music of the Bad Boys de Taos. In September they checked blood pressures and blood sugar at a healthcare expo.

Santiago on horseback, Santa Ana in a carriage

Accounts of the fiesta’s age differ. The council’s parade pages say the celebrations “date back to the early 1600’s.” Writing in the Taos News in 2011, Ariana Kramer said the fiestas began in the 1930s, though the traditions are older. In her account the Catholic Church had organized celebrations around saints’ feast days, which supported the faith of early colonists and provided “learning experiences for newly converted Natives.” Rick Romancito wrote in 2012 that the fiestas as known today were begun in the 1930s to draw visitors in summer. A 2022 Taos News staff report put the plaza celebration at roughly 100 years.

Don Francisco Trujillo II, treasurer of the council in 2011, explained the choice of saints. Taos, like other Northern New Mexico communities, took Santiago and Santa Ana as patrons “because they were the patron saints for the country of Spain.” The Taos historian Larry Torres wrote that the colonists built their first church, San Jerónimo, at Taos Pueblo. Padre Martínez later moved the seat of church authority to Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Taos proper. In Torres’s account the first day belonged to Santiago, when men rode horseback through the plaza in their finest livery, “encatrinados.” The second day belonged to St. Anne, when women rode in horse-drawn carriages. The faithful hold St. Anne as patroness of women and horses. In 2011 the Taos News noted that the town fiestas fall on the weekend near the feast days. On the feast days themselves, Taos Pueblo holds corn dances.

According to Trujillo, the fiestas have always been held on the plaza, though the plaza was once larger. Its border used to be Doña Luz Street. The original Our Lady of Guadalupe Church stood inside it, on ground that in 2011 was a parking lot in front of Antonio’s Restaurant and El Gamal. A photograph on the council’s history page shows the 1957 court: Reina Martha Martinez, attendants Kathy Vigil and Erlinda Martinez, and pageboys Larry and Toby Santistevan.

Not every change has been welcome. In 2012 Romancito objected to booths selling T-shirts, toys and curios that had nothing to do with fiestas. Some of the toys had been plastic guns barely distinguishable from real ones, and he passed along a suggestion for a Spanish Market instead. A pared-down fiesta was held in 2021. The 2022 edition was the first in the usual format since the pandemic began in 2020, but the New Mexico Department of Transportation refused a permit for the Historical Parade because of the Paseo Project construction on NM-68. “Despite not being able to host the much-adored, historical parade this year, we are still very excited to celebrate the gathering of generations on Taos Plaza,” said Mayor Pascual Maestas.

A Lincoln Continental on the Hondo hill

The Friday marchas date only to the early 1980s, and Trujillo tells how they started. In 1982 he escorted Annette Torres, the younger sister of his college sweetheart, who was on the fiesta court. “We were having a blast. We were just soaking up all the attention,” he said. The Gran Baile was then held at St. Joseph’s Hall, next to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, and under the liquor laws of the day it was bring your own bottle. The court went in to lead the Grand Marcha. Right afterward the mayordomos told them, “I’m sorry, but you have to leave.” There was alcohol in the hall, and the court was underage. “They kicked us out! Literally!” Trujillo said.

The court that night included Carmen Vigil, the reina, along with Kathleen Branchal and Vivian Herrera, who was driving her mother’s Lincoln Continental. Trujillo made them a bet: “I bet you that if we went to every single dance in this town and said we were here with the Queen and the court they would let us in to do the marcha.” He continued, “So, literally, in all our fiesta get-up we crawled into this huge Lincoln Continental that Vivian had and we just drove from bar to bar.” They went to Martínez Hall in Ranchos, Los Compadres in El Prado, the Kachina and Herb’s Lounge in Arroyo Hondo. “We’d spend half an hour or so leading the marcha in each place.”

Coming up the big hill back from Hondo, the Lincoln ran out of gas. The teenagers stood by the road in their fiesta clothes until a Taos County sheriff on patrol pulled over and called a deputy to bring fuel. By 2011 the court rode its own rented bus behind a Town of Taos police escort. The royalty of Santa Fe, Española and Las Vegas followed in buses of their own, an entourage of almost 200 people stopping at dance parties all over town.