These 6 New Mexico Towns Have The Most Unique Festivals

From ground to sky, New Mexico is spectacularly strange. Look down to find geological oddities twisted by sand and time. Look up to see an astral wonderland with figures real and imagined. Though that unexplained celestial event might never happen again, certain strange New Mexican events do repeat, for years on end, in towns across the state. Plentiful festivals are held for everything from spicy fruit to shovel races to those unexplained objects in the sky. Learn where and when to find these unique New Mexico festivals.

Hatch

"Down the hatch" is a dangerous sentence in Hatch, New Mexico—especially during Labor Day Weekend. That is when this remote village gets extra spicy for the Hatch Chile Festival. From its spot along the Rio Grande, Hatch grows many pecks of peppers that are celebrated, ingested, and indigested by over 30,000 guests of the fest. Beyond Scoville-rated activities like chile cooking workshops and chile eating contests, it hosts much milder attractions. These include vendors, rides, musical performances, a parade, a Chile Queen coronation, and eating contests for chile antidotes like ice cream and watermelon. Still, the piercingly pleasant smell of roasted peppers permeates the entire village, not just during festival days but throughout the year.

Among Hatch's year-round chile haunts are the Hatch Chile Express, Hatch Chile Market, and Chile Fanatic. Surprising no one, Hatch is called the "Chile Capital of the World." Voting just wrapped for its festival to win one of the USA TODAY 10Best Readers' Choice Awards. Winners in the Best Specialty Food Festival category are set to be announced on March 12, 2025.

Red River

You expect to find Mardi Gras in New Orleans and nearby French-influenced cities, but not in the Spanish-settled mountains of New Mexico. Yet, at ~8,700 feet above sea level, the town of Red River has hosted Mardi Gras in the Mountains since 1992. For the six days and nights leading up to Lent, the Sangre de Cristos get Cajunized with colorful beads, costumes, music, booze, parades, and the burning of a Louisianan/New Mexican folk symbol called the Wild Tchoupitoulas. Each year brings a different theme. 2025's was "Superheroes."

Despite its meager population (542 at the 2020 Census), Red River hosts several other vibrant festivals. They cover all seasons, so in addition to Mardi Gras in the Mountains in late winter, you can attend the Red River Songwriter's Festival in early winter, Art & Wine Festival: Vino in the Valley in spring, 8750' BBQ & Music Festival in summer, and Aspencade Arts Festival in fall.

Edgewood

Pirates and Vikings rarely mix in the popular imagination. Both were spirited seafarers, but pirates pillaged in the tropical south while Vikings pillaged in the frigid north. Perhaps the only place where their likenesses mingle is Edgewood, New Mexico. This small, semi-arid town is several hundred miles from either ocean yet hosts the Pirate and Viking Summer Bash. Each August, guests dress as pirates and Vikings for two days of interfolklorish fun. Activities include mead tasting, belly dancing, sword fighting, and fire shows. The Pirate & Viking Summer Bash is held at the Wildlife West Nature Park, as is spring's New Mexico Renaissance Celtic Festival.

For a trifecta of unique fests, head about 30 miles west to Albuquerque for the Before I Die New Mexico Festival, which prepares people for simultaneously the most ignored, feared, and important event. It does so with films about death (both lighthearted and serious); tours of funeral homes, crematoria, and cemeteries; and lectures on everything from financial planning to medical aid-in-dying. Keep on the lookout for 2025 dates.

Taos

Another Sangre de Cristos Mountains town and cultural mosaic, Taos hosts dozens of unique festivals. They range from the Taos Winter Wine Festival in February to Dennis Hopper Day in May, the Taos Pueblo Pow Wow in July, the Glam Trash Fashion Show in September, and the Taos Mountain Balloon Rally in October. But arguably, the oddest fest happens in January/February just outside of Taos.

Down the slopes of the Angel Fire Resort, adults and children slide on their own or resort-supplied grain shovels for the World Championship Shovel Races. The races returned in 2025 after a five-year hiatus with categories for men, women, and "little scoops" and prizes from pizza to $1,000. The 2025 women's winner reached a speed of 59 miles per hour while the men's winner peak at 62 mph.

Pie Town

You can probably guess what Pie Town's biggest festival is about. Yes, Pie Town is a real census-designated place (population 166 per the 2020 Census) that hosts the Pie Town Pie Festival. The town and festival were allegedly derived from a prospector named Clyde Norman, who traded his pickaxe for a pie knife and gold nuggets for Golden Delicious. He sold dried fruit pies from a dinky gas station at the site of the present town.

Around a century later, townsfolk still sell fruit pies from dinky establishments, which get extra busy on the second Saturday of each September. Expected to have its 43rd edition in 2025, the Pie Town Pie Festival features a "PiK" run, Pie Queen/King coronation, pie baking contest, pie eating contest, and perplexingly non-pie-related horned toad race.

Roswell

Similar to Pie Town, if you know Roswell, you know what to expect at its signature fest. As the rough location of a mysterious 1947 aircraft crash that dominates UFO lore, Roswell is home to the Roswell UFO Festival, a three-day celebration of all things extraterrestrial.

Since 1996, many thousands of beings have landed in town for spacey activities such as laser shows, costume contests, UFOlogist lectures, cosmic car and bike shows, aerial performances, alien bus crawls, drone shows, galaxy fairs, night sky hikes, and a fest-within-a-fest called AlienFest, which promotes downtown-area businesses. 2025's Roswell UFO Festival is scheduled to run from Friday, July 4, to Sunday, July 6.

New Mexico's festivals are as weird and wonderful as the rest of its attractions. In remote New Mexican towns, you can find annual celebrations for spicy peppers, Cajun culture, historical/mythical figures, shovel races, pies, and unidentified flying objects. Visit Hatch, Red River, Edgewood, Taos, Pie Town, and Roswell for such unique fests. But between chomping chiles, playing a pirate, and sliding down a mountain on a shovel, check out the other oddities in and around the towns.