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Fiesta Americas returned to Gypsum’s Lundgren Amphitheater for the third year in a row on Sunday. The festival is the only celebration of Latino culture in Eagle County and drew a large crowd through its wide range of free, family-friendly activities and performances.

The festival, which was founded by Mountain Recreation and My Future Pathways in 2022, “started as a way to highlight our Latin American culture,” said Eddie Campos, Mountain Recreation’s marketing and community engagement director.

Over 30% of Eagle County’s population, and over 50% of the population in schools, identifies as Hispanic or Latino, but there were no large-scale local events to celebrate Latino culture before Fiesta Americas.

“Being able to celebrate the cultural diversity, being able to promote social connection and being able to ensure people feel belonging in our valley has been key, and it’s something that’s been guiding us all these years,” Campos said.

‘We’re here to thrive’

The event kicks off National Hispanic Heritage Month and takes place during Latino Conservation Week.

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“One of the biggest (pieces of) feedback (last year) was, this is an event that feels like recognizes and celebrates the fact that we have a big Latino population here and that we’re not here to survive. We’re here to thrive,” said Kate Harman, family and community engagement manager with My Future Pathways. “And part of that is like enjoying our culture and remembering where we come from. This event gives us all the chance to reminisce on our heritage and our roots and see how far we’ve come from where we grew up and where we are, and how that continues to be a part of our identity for the rest of our life.”

Fiesta Americas has only grown over the last three years. In its first year, the festival had over 1,900 people in attendance, and attendance increased to 2,600 last year. To support the festival’s growth, Eagle County joined as a third partner in 2024.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to get an awesome response from the community — this event and what it provides, it really resonates,” Campos said. “We hope to continue to grow, and the word hopefully spreads.”

‘Everyone is welcome’

The festival has always taken an Eagle County-first approach.

“This, in the years that we’ve hosted, it has really truly felt like an event for locals,” Campos said. While the majority of the crowd is made up of locals, visitors came from Summit, Pitkin, Garfield and Lake counties last year.

“This is an event of locals for locals,” Harman said. “Aside from wanting the community to connect, we want the community to start becoming part of it, to make this event your own.”

And although the festival is about celebrating Latino culture, and most attendees do speak Spanish, “everyone is invited,” Campos said. “You do not need to speak Spanish. You do not need to be a Latino or Hispanic. Everyone is welcome.”

The organizers designed the event to be appealing and accessible to all ages — not to mention free. “The activities we’ve planned out so that toddlers have something specifically for them, teens, adults have something specifically for their age group to enjoy,” Campos said. “That is something that we’ve loved seeing at this event is seeing teens, which is a difficult group to engage with and have at our events, and the day of, you see teens everywhere.”

Something for everyone

The multitude of free, family-friendly activities included a giant obstacle course and a rope course, a volleyball court with drop-in games and a touch-a-truck experience with local first responders.

The crowd was fed by an abundance of food trucks, arranged to create a food court feel. Those who wished to shop visited local arts and craft vendors at their booths.

This year, there were over 50 booths, including over 30 local nonprofit organizations specifically focused on the Latino population, each with an activity to engage passersby. “This isn’t a resource fair, but really a celebration of culture and bringing joy to the community,” Campos said.

Onstage, live music and performances embracing different aspects of Latino culture played throughout the afternoon.

Based on feedback from last year’s festival, the event organizers took a broader approach to Latin American cultural engagement. Organizers brought in performers including Denver-based traditional Aztec/Mexica dance group Grupo Tlaloc, Denver-based Brazilian dancers Escola de Samba, and the headliner, Catabella Music from Miami, a group of musicians originally from a variety of Latin American countries. Students with Bravo! Vail also played music by Latin composers.

“Something really cool about Catabella is that they’re pretty representative of our valley in some ways, too, because the lead singer is from Colombia and then the rest of the band members are from different parts of South America,” Harman said. “It’s not just cumbia, they’re doing bachata, salsa. So there are a lot of opportunities for people to feel represented with the music as well.”

Fiesta Americas weathered some rain, but that did not stop community members from heading out for an afternoon filled with fun, connection and celebration.

“It’s just really an event where people feel like they’re appreciated, where their culture is not something that they have to hide or shy away from, that it’s actually something that is celebrated,” Harman said. “You’re listening to music in Spanish, you’re smelling the delicious food of the food trucks, and everybody around you speaks Spanish — then you see the community come together.”