kite festival 2024

Save the Date: April 26th-28th 2024

at Overlook Park

About Los Alamos Kite festival

Starting in 1996, the Los Alamos Arts Council Kite Festival is the largest of its kind in Northern New Mexico.

We are returning to the community once again with elementary school workshops, kite building and flying at Overlook Park, community events and lectures with partners like the Los Alamos Library and Los Alamos STEAM lab, and collaborations with artists to create beautiful kites to display in community buildings.

The Festival includes music, food, kite-building workshops, and lots of kite flying. Kite enthusiasts from all over the southwest fly their large, intricately shaped kites and hand-made flying works of art, demonstrate stunt-kite flying, and grace the fields with incredibly colorful banners. Free kite-building workshops for kids are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoon where children build and decorate simple kites with assistance from volunteers. Kids use both their craft and artistic skills to put literally hundreds of these kites up in the sky. For the six-and-under crowd, pre-built kites are available for decorating.

A kite hospital is staffed with kite medics to mend the inevitable broken and injured kites using sticks, duct tape, and ingenuity. Everyone young at heart is invited. Bring a kite, build a kite, fly a kite, or just take in the artful scene. Help keep the Kite Festival free to all attendees: If you would like to donate or contribute as a Program Sponsor, please contact LAAC at 505-662-1635 or email us at info@laac-flac.org.

Every year LAAC gives away hundreds of T-shirts to local youth who build and fly kites with us at Overlook Park. This year, we will continue this tradition. To help us offset the costs of these shirts, we are offering an additional fundraising opportunity through Bonfire. With more shirt and sizing options, this is a great way to help us keep the Kite Festival Flying!

Donate today to help keep Kite Fest a free event for all of Northern New Mexico!

Kite Festival Itinerary and FAQs

We’ve been so busy with our friends and community partners to get kites to kids around the region. If you’ve already built a kite at one of our workshops, or you already have your own, we hope you’ll come fly with us. If you don’t, no worries. Thanks to community generosity, everyone can simply show up to make, decorate, and fly their own kite!


  • The festival is FREE! Thanks to our sponsors, donors, and community partners, we are able to bring this event to Los Alamos and our neighbors at no cost. We do appreciate donations to help us continue our mission of building community engagement through the arts.

  • If you can fly a kite, watch a kite, like kites, or just want a day in the park, you're the right age for kites! We have kite building kits for kiddos, typically aimed at pre-k and up, but if you have a wee one, we'll happily give you a kite to fly with them. No kids? Not a problem! This event is open to all. We do ask that dogs be leashed in the park and that you pick up their poo. Everyone will be looking up at the sky, not their feet. Got a little? We have a special area in the park for our littlest kite fliers and a kite master available to lend a hand if things get rowdy!

  • First, welcome and thank you for coming!

    Everyone flying needs to check in at the main tent before going out onto the field.

    You’ll see two sets of check in tables: one for those who’ve brought their own kites and one for those who are here to build and customize their own piece of art in the sky.


    “I HAVE A KITE”
    This line is for you if you have already built a kite with our community partners or have your own and are ready to fly. Come to this line and we will get you checked in and you can then go and claim your spot in the sky.


    “I’M GOING TO BUILD A KITE”
    This line is for you if you have not built or brought a kite. We will get you checked in and send you back to work with our volunteers to build and decorate your kites. Once you’ve finished your kite, you can take it to the sky!

  • There is limited parking in Overlook Park. We highly recommend carpooling, walking, or biking. Please do not block driveways, mailboxes, or trashcans on Meadow Drive or the surrounding neighborhoods.

  • We have limited tee shirts to give away for free so check in early to secure yours.

  • We will also have contests and give-aways, a kite raffle to win one of several kite prizes, face painting, music and local craft vendors.

  • Check out these videos on how to tie a Larks Head knot:
    https://youtu.be/eHDNyYZrgDk
    https://youtu.be/5Zd8WMAmBWw

The Los Alamos Kite Festival relies on your support to keep flying. Help us reach our funding goal!

Paseo Project Artist in Residence Jemila McEwan Comes to Los Alamos For Community Workshop

The Los Alamos Arts Council is kicking off Kite Festival Season and has partnered with the Paseo Project in Taos to bring a special artist to our after school program on April 19th from 1-4 pm. This project will be free for our currently enrolled after school students. A limited number of seats will also be made available to the public.

“The Paseo Project in Taos, New Mexico is pleased to present Sun Seeds.  A community project celebrating  the forces of nature that shape our environment and sustain life. Elements like the New Mexico sun and wind.

Join environmental interdisciplinary artist Jemila McEwan to build, explore and create a joyous celebration of kites that intends to light up the natural landscape and experience a tangible physical relationship between nature and human impact.”