Jose R. Mendez is bringing Día de Muertos back to Palm Beach County this Saturday, Nov. 7, with a free celebration at The Peach in West Palm Beach after the long-running Lake Worth Beach festival he helped build was canceled this year. The event runs from 3 to 9 p.m. at The Peach, located at 3950 Georgia Avenue, and will fold into the venue's monthly Art Walk.
Mendez co-founded the original Día de los Muertos Festival in Lake Worth Beach back in 2016, according to WLRN, and spent nearly a decade helping organize and grow it, per WPEC. When that festival lost its funding this year, Mendez asked if he could bring a scaled-down version to The Peach Collective instead, WLRN reports.
The move is personal as much as logistical. Mendez's father, Juan J. Mendez, died recently in Guatemala, and WPEC reports that honoring his father's love of culture is part of what pushed him to keep the tradition alive this year. “He was big on culture,” Mendez said, describing his father in comments reported by the Lake Worth Beach Independent. Mendez has said the celebration gives him a chance to honor his father, bring the community together, and continue a cultural tradition, according to WPEC.
A Smaller Stage for a Big Tradition
This year's gathering will be noticeably scaled back from what Lake Worth Beach crowds were used to. The Lake Worth Beach Independent reports the Nov. 7 event will be smaller than previous festivals and, unlike earlier editions, will skip the parade and car show entirely. Day of the Dead itself, as WPEC describes it, is a Mexican tradition honoring deceased loved ones through offerings, photographs, flowers, food and other personal items displayed on altars.
Visitors can still expect plenty to do. Ofrendas will be set up in the gallery, alongside local artisan vendors, face painting, a costume contest for Catrín and Catrina looks open to adults, children and even pets, and a children's activity zone presented by Raíces Creative Arts Academy, according to WPEC and the Lake Worth Beach Independent. The lineup also includes outdoor art installations — among them a mural, a giant heart sculpture and a five-foot-tall alebrije, per the same outdoor-art details reported by WLRN.
Music, Dance and a Friendly Art Battle
Performers booked for the afternoon include Mariachi de Mi Tierra Internacional, vocalist Emmanuel Gonzalez, and a Selena tribute from Liz Ramirez, according to WPEC. Latinos a Bailar, a dance group from John I. Leonard High School, is also set to perform. Organizers have also planned an art battle in which 10 artists will compete for a $500 prize, WLRN reports.
Admission remains free and open to the public, continuing what WPEC describes as a local tradition in Palm Beach County even as the event's home base shifts to West Palm Beach. Mendez organized the independent celebration specifically to keep the cultural tradition alive after the Lake Worth Beach festival's cancellation, per WPEC's reporting.
Why the Original Festival Disappeared
The Lake Worth Beach festival's cancellation traces back to budget decisions at the city's Community Redevelopment Agency. The Lake Worth Beach Independent reports the CRA's nonprofit creative partner approved a budget with no money set aside for the event this year, and officials said the agency received no state support in 2026. The outlet also reported that grants from the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs, which had previously funded much of the festival, were significantly reduced, cutting off state backing the event once relied on.
Attendance had already been slipping before the funding dried up. The Lake Worth Beach Independent reported that turnout at last year's festival was down, with many potential attendees staying away out of concern over immigration raids. Just how big the festival had grown before that decline is a point of some disagreement: the Lake Worth Beach Independent has described past festivals as drawing as many as 6,000 people, while WLRN reported the 2024 event alone pulled in more than 6,000 attendees. Either way, the festival had expanded well beyond its Lake Worth Beach roots since launching in 2016, growing into a regional draw that pulled visitors from as far as Miami and Fort Pierce, according to the Lake Worth Beach Independent.
Pulling off even a leaner version of the celebration hasn't been easy. When WLRN spoke with Mendez in mid-October, his nonprofit, the No More Starving Artists Foundation, had raised just $250 of the $4,000 he said was needed to put on the event. Despite the shortfall, Mendez pressed ahead, determined to keep Día de Muertos alive in the community even without the budget — or the parade — that once defined it.
