Albuquerque’s creative economy shows strong post-pandemic recovery, report says

Like many others in Albuquerque’s arts and culture scene, Duke City Repertory Theatre has had to adapt over the past several years.

The nonprofit theater company now performs as much as 80% of its programming in nontraditional spaces, like breweries or bed-and-breakfasts or people’s homes, an effort accelerated by the pandemic, said artistic director Amelia Ampuero.

“The biggest lesson that we have learned through COVID is that if we take theater to the people, they’ll show up,” Ampuero said.

The community has shown up, she said. To make its programming more accessible, Duke City Rep has implemented a pay-what-you-want model for performances. Sometimes, attendees pay with $3; other times, people have handed Ampuero a $1,000 check.

“I love audiences in Albuquerque,” Ampuero said. “I have worked in other states, and I have a deep, deep love for the audiences here, because if you gain their trust, they’ll be avid fans of yours forever.”

Albuquerque’s creative economy remains a healthy and vital part of the city’s economy, according to a new report from the city and the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of New Mexico. 

Nearly all sectors of the creative economy showed growth from 2019 to 2024, indicating that it has made a significant recovery since the pandemic, said Rose Rohrer, a senior research analyst at UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research.

“There are certain sectors that haven’t recovered as much, but in general, it was just up, up, up, and that was impressive,” said Rohrer, one of the report’s authors.

Albuquerque’s creative economy — encompassing art, design, tourism, advocacy, education, film and media, festivals and museums — generated $1.75 billion in economic impact in 2024, according to the study.

The report — the first analysis of the city’s creative economy since 2014, Sanchez said — builds on recent momentum for arts support statewide. The state Economic Development Department created a Creative Industries Division in 2023 for bolstering arts, entertainment, technology and design statewide.

“I think this study… reminds us that arts and culture and creative entrepreneurship is a strength of our city and our state,” said city Arts & Culture Director Shelle Sanchez.

In 2024, creative businesses in the Albuquerque metro area employed 17,682 workers, representing 4.4% of all local employment, according to the study. Albuquerque’s estimated 2,457 creative establishments made up 8.9% of all businesses in the area.

Retail trade was the only part of the city’s creative economy to show a decline in the total value of all goods and services produced from 2019 to 2024, a decline which Rohrer says may be attributable to changing spending patterns among tourists. 

The media sector, which includes the city’s film industry, produced an output of $2.8 billion in 2024, the largest output of any creative sector by far. Over a period of five years, the film industry’s output more than doubled. 

New Mexico has quickly become a top destination for filmmakers, though an industry downturn — leading to a drop of more than 56% in production spending from the 2024 to 2025 fiscal years — may be an indication of changes to come for the state’s film industry.

“It’s a real complex and intertwined piece of the creative economy,” Sanchez said. “It impacts food businesses and costume designers and thrift shops and all of these other pieces that are not obvious when you’re thinking about a film set.”

If New Mexico were to lose a significant number of film productions, “our creative economy would feel that,” she added.

April Chalay, executive director at 516 ARTS, a contemporary art museum in Downtown Albuquerque, says she’s felt a “crucial” increase in public support of the creative economy from both sides of the political divide.

The museum received a $25,000 grant appropriated by state Sen. Jay Block, R-Rio Rancho, for a new and larger facility after Block toured the building earlier this year, Chalay said.

“I think that arts and culture can go across the aisle, and I think that everybody, for the most part, understands why that’s important here in our state,” Chalay said.

What’s not accounted for in the report, which includes data up to 2024, is the loss of federal grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, which were revoked by the Trump administration earlier this year as a result of shifting “grantmaking policy priorities,” the administration said. 

516 ARTS lost a $30,000 NEA grant it had been receiving annually for the past decade, Chalay said, which represented about 10% of the organization’s budget. As a result, the museum has cut staff from six people down to three, she said.

To recoup the funds, the organization has had to depend on the community, Chalay said.

“You don’t find this in other places,” she said. “You definitely don’t find this, say, in our sister organizations in Texas, for example. But our city, and the work that they’re trying to do, is really helping support not only what we do every year, but helping support our programs and helping advocate for the creative economy.”

Natalie Robbins covers the economy and health care for the Journal. You can reach her at nrobbins@abqjournal.com.