Dia de los Muertos Festival

I tried to check in to no avail. I was told I was too far away even though I was right there. In any event, this Day of the Dead festival is so much fun. A ton of vendors selling their wares, face painting, clothing, a large food court, a magnificent alter, an alter contest and entertainment all through the day. You could get Katrina painting on your face and black veils. We really enjoy seeing the culture and practices. Free street and lot parking

What a great time this was! My family and I were impressed, and we were so excited to be surrounded with others within our culture. The food trucks are great, the little concerts on each stage are really good too! I highly recommend this! Don't miss out!

I would describe this as a family event mostly. The booths are geared to kids with face painting and other kid stuff. They had plenty of booths selling lots of mainly skeleton related stuff and it was the same junk in every place. This was all free with free parking and it had a good crowd on Saturday afternoon. The food was mostly food trucks and food city burritos. It was colorful and took about an hour or so to wander without any kids slowing me down.

This is for the Mesa event. It's held at the Mesa Arts Center. It's rather large and there are numerous vendors selling mostly handmade items. There are several vendors selling the mass produced ceramics and shirts made in a factory with day of the dead themes, but you can get this junk in any store in Old Town like Bischoffs or The Mexican Import Store. What I really like are the vendors that sell homemade Day of the Dead handicrafts. One vendor handmakes the figurines, both male and female. Several do handpainted, one-of-a-kind art work that is both beautiful and original. One vendor has hand made Day of the Dead skull earrings, jewelry, soaps, among other things. I'd rather pay 20 bucks for those than the 5 dollar mass produced plastic earrings. Enough negativity. The shows and dancers and music is pure energy. Watching the dancers with the heavy drum beats is just amazing. Perusing the low rider cars....how amazing...and the work that goes into them.And it's all free....with lots of free parking. Go check this out. You might find your new obsession!

I had never been to a Dia de los Muertos festival, but I had seen various incarnations of them on TV. Always willing to learn more about different cultures, and always up for an adventure, we headed over to the Mesa Arts Center to see what the festival would be like. There were several booths lined along the walkways selling various Dia de los Muertos crafts, mainly skull-themed for obvious reasons. There was a large section partitioned off as a memorial for people to look, think and reflect upon. In the back, there were a few stands selling food, but by the time we got here (In mid-afternoon) some of them had already stopped selling food, or were out of certain foods (Such as the tamale stand, which ran out of half of their items). The festival here seemed small compared to others, but it seemed to capture the essence of Dia de los Muertos pretty well (As far as I know, since this is my first time at one of these festivals). For music, there was always an artist performing when we were here, both in the front area and in the back.

I love the Day of the Dead and the celebrations surrounding it. Mesa puts on a really fun, colorful event with dancers and vendors selling their folkart. Events all around the city usually take place between October 31 - November 2. Check this site for details - http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dead/