El Día de los Muertos at Cheekwood

About this adventure

Cheekwood's 27th annual El Día de los Muertos festival, billed as the region's largest Day of the Dead celebration, fills the estate for two days. Families tour ofrendas (memorial altars) built by community groups and see large Day of the Dead murals painted by area middle and high school students hanging in the Frist Learning Center. Kids' activities include making paper marigolds to wear on a headband, crafting a monarch butterfly to welcome a returning loved one, coloring and stringing miniature papel picado, and writing a name or memory for the memory tree. In Parking Lot B and the Frist Learning Center courtyard, ballet folklórico groups such as Sol de Mexico and Lirios Folkloricos dance, there is a La Catrina fashion show, and a marketplace sells art, handmade items and traditional food. A timed-entry ticket is required; parking may fill, after which walk-ups are sold only to rideshare guests, and off-site parking can be booked.