Fall foliage and family fun: ABQ BioPark Aquarium and Botanic Garden host Harvest Festival

Fall for the fun of autumn during the Harvest Festival at the ABQ BioPark Aquarium and Botanic Garden.

The festival is a two-day celebration of all things fall related. From food to entertainment and live music, the festival gives guests a taste of the season.

“It’s a great place where we can get locals into the BioPark and garden and bring some of that community into the garden,” said Bree Ortiz, the city’s community events division manager.

Start the day with face painters who can help guests get into the fall spirit. Gardeners at the aquarium and botanic garden grounds have arranged seasonal displays throughout the space to encourage guests to snap a photo and share the fall fun.

Guests can roam the botanic garden and the aquarium and take part in things to do at every turn. Local bands will serenade visitors on seven different stages around the aquarium and botanic garden grounds. Bands will be performing various genres of music including surf rock, swing, Mexican folk music, jazz, mariachi and more. Guests will also be able to watch traditional performances from local Mexican folk dance group Baila! Baila!

The Shark Reef Cafe will offer seasonal meals and drinks to get the feeling of fall in entertainment, weather and flavors. Additional food vendors will be selling snacks at various locations during the event. Menu items include a barbecue rib plate, brisket sandwich plate, loaded brisket baked potatoes, elote (corn), sausage on a stick, loaded apple wedges, fresh-spun cotton candy, a cobbler cone delight, fresh-squeezed lemonade, flavored lemonade, loaded lemonade and a boozy lemonade shaker.

The star of the show will be pints of apple cider made with apples from the botanic garden’s Heritage Farm. Guests can choose to make their apple cider plain, dress it up with whipped cream topped with a caramel drizzle, or add a distilled spirit to make an adult beverage to sip on.

Local artisans will be on-site selling handcrafted merchandise including Blossom & Barrel, Bee Nice Beauty, Dawson Designs, Dee Devine Boutique, Flora & Foliage, Half Full Designs, Harvest & Clay Pottery, Little Miracles Handmade LLC, Love on a Wire, Oakenwell, Santa Fe Honey Salon, Squidly Designs, Stephaknots and Wethington Holistic Arts.

Between the fun, there will be discovery stations with educational posts where guests can engage in activities themed around harvest time.

”What makes this different, is we are at the botanic garden so you can also learn about plants and the season, so there’s also an educational piece to it,” Ortiz said. “They’re gonna have things for everybody that are going to be harvest themed. There’s going to be a chile discovery station and crafts that have to do with harvest and plants, story time at the farmhouse and demonstrations throughout the garden.”

Guests will get an exclusive sneak peek of the progress on the Heritage Farm expansion, with visitors getting limited access to explore parts of the farm before it closes on Oct. 14 for the remainder of construction. Guests can take a look at apple cider presses and watch how apple cider is made, and look at the large crops in the field between demonstrations.

“This is a great event for the community,” Ortiz said. “It’s great for all ages, and it’s a great way to show off this beautiful facility during a lovely part of the year.”