A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel de Allende.
FASMA 2026 runs August 7 to 23 in San Miguel de Allende with France as guest country of honor. What to see, what is free, and what to book.
For seventeen days starting Friday, the city hands itself over. Bellas Artes, the Biblioteca, Casa Europa, the Ángela Peralta, Fábrica La Aurora, El Sindicato, the Museo del Juguete, the Jardín. More than a dozen venues running at once, and a program so large that the honest advice is to stop trying to see all of it.
The fourth edition of FASMA, the Festival de las Artes San Miguel de Allende, runs August 7 to 23. More than 100 activities. More than 20 cultural organizations. And a striking amount of it costs nothing.
Every festival needs a reason. This year FASMA has two, and they happen to rhyme.
San Miguel de Allende turns 200 as a municipality. Mexico and France also mark 200 years of diplomatic relations. So France arrives as país invitado, guest country of honor, and the French thread runs through the whole program rather than sitting in a corner of it.
That’s the organizing idea. Whether it holds together across 100+ events is the thing to watch.
The festival opens Friday August 7 at the Instituto Allende, then moves outdoors. The Banda de Música del Estado de Guanajuato plays the Jardín Principal, free, with a program of French and Mexican music and a tribute to José Alfredo Jiménez.
Which is a very San Miguel way to start a Francophile festival: state band, colonial square, and the man from Dolores Hidalgo who wrote the songs everyone in the country can finish.
This is where FASMA earns its reputation. Entrada libre on a lot of the strongest programming.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Colaboraciones. The most significant name in the catalogue. Mexico’s foundational photographer, in an exhibition curated by M. Laufer with archive material from A. Álvarez. Free.
Beethoven’s Ninth. Four choirs combined: Coro Filarmónico de San Miguel, Chorale San Miguel, Coro Pro Música, and Coro Capella Sanmiguelense. Free. Go early.
La Parisienne. A photography show built around the French capital, with Helmut Newton and Guillermo Kahlo in the same room, alongside Patrick Chelli, Daniel Waks, Claudio Mansour and Antonio Ibarra. Free, and the sharpest expression of the France theme in the whole program.
Ray Smith: El Orden Salvaje. Free.
Sillas de Leonora Carrington. An inauguration of Carrington chairs, presented by Jessica Vallin. Free.
Ceramistas Franceses. Valerie Casado and Violaine Ulmer. Free.
Sarah Philouze. Exhibition, free.
Shifting Baselines (Horizontes Perdidos). A premiere, directed by Julien Elie, English audio with Spanish subtitles. Free.
Gala de Ópera y Zarzuela. María Katzarava, one of the most decorated sopranos Mexico has produced, with soprano Lluvia Ruelas and pianist Jozef Olechowski. $400. The single highest-wattage ticket of the festival.
Sona Trío: Viaje Sonoro. Guitarists Pepe Alcocer, Ibrahaim Cárdenas and Elías García. $330.
Augusto Barron: De Bach a Freddie Mercury. Solo guitar, exactly what the title promises. $330.
Other Desert Cities. Jon Robin Baitz, staged by Players Workshop, directed by Richard Hochberg. $440.
2° Encuentro de Maestros Artesanos at the Museo del Juguete Popular. Award-winning artisans working in the room. $150, and the best value on the list if you like watching hands work.
Small, but well chosen, and it leans into the French thread.
Luis Buñuel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. $133, with a discussion afterward led by Amy Cotler.
Ali Abbasi, Border. $133, same format.
John Scheinfeld brings two of his own documentaries and stays to talk about them: Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback and The U.S. vs. John Lennon. $150 each.
FASMA’s workshop program is the part visitors tend to miss.
Urban sketching with Tere Lojero, $800. Plein air painting with Irina Yushmanova, $800. Cartonería with Karel Gorenc, a much-decorated master of the form, $250. Playwriting with Mónica Hoth, $1,300 for the full course. Acrylic painting with Alejandro Palomares, $350.
There are also historic walking tours of the city in both English and Spanish, run by Formas Francas, at $750.
The venue list reads like an inventory of the centro: Bellas Artes and the Centro Cultural El Nigromante, Teatro Ángela Peralta, Teatro Santa Ana, the Biblioteca Pública, Casa Europa México, Casa del Mayorazgo de la Canal, Templo de San Francisco, Templo de la Tercera Orden, Casa de Cultura Mesones, El Sindicato, Sala Quetzal, Foro El Obraje, La Buhardilla, Galería Bnai Or, Galería Amarillo, the Museo del Juguete, Instituto Allende, and Fábrica La Aurora.
Which means for seventeen days you can walk from one thing to the next without getting in a car. That is the actual argument for FASMA over a bigger festival in a bigger city.
Full program and tickets at fasma.com.mx, organized by day from Friday the 7th through Sunday the 23rd. All prices in pesos.
Our advice: pick three ticketed things and let the free programming happen to you. The festival is too big to schedule and too good to skip.
A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel.
