Thousands of shoppers packed the University of New Mexico campus Saturday for the fifth annual Art of Gifting New Mexico Art and Crafts Festival, turning out for a day of locally owned holiday shopping. More than 100 local artists and small businesses set up booths, giving Albuquerque residents a chance to knock out their holiday lists with handmade goods instead of mall-bought merchandise.
According to KRQE, the festival brought thousands of people together for the shopping event, with vendors spread across the university's Continuing Education Conference Center. The UNM Continuing Education event page lists the venue at 1634 University Blvd. NE and advertises unique, locally handmade gifts from New Mexico artists and vendors.
Workshops Let Shoppers Get Crafty Themselves
Beyond browsing booths, the festival featured creative workshops teaching guests how to make their own holiday crafts, per the station's report. UNM's event listing notes that attendees could register in advance for a one-hour hands-on workshop during the festival, giving visitors a chance to leave with something they made themselves alongside whatever they bought.
The event ran Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., matching the hours posted on UNM's own event page. That gave families a full day to wander the vendor rows, sign up for a workshop session, and finish out their holiday shopping in one trip.
UNM Pushes Buying Local for the Holidays
Audrey Arnold, executive director of Continuing Education at UNM, used the festival as a chance to make the case for shopping small this season. She encouraged people to think about local artists and the local economy by buying locally and buying handcrafted art, the same report notes.
That message lines up with how UNM has framed the event from the start. When Continuing Education first announced the festival in its inaugural year, it promised more than 75 vendors at the Continuing Education building along with family-friendly events, live entertainment and food trucks — all free for the entire community. Saturday's fifth edition has clearly grown from that original pitch, with vendor numbers now topping 100.
A Growing Tradition With Some Fuzzy History
Not every account of the festival's past lines up neatly. An earlier KRQE report described hundreds of people turning out for what it called the Art of Giving arts and crafts festival, with more than 95 local businesses and artists participating over the same 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. window — but that report carries no date, so it is unclear which edition of the event it covered or how its numbers compare directly to Saturday's turnout. What is clear is that the festival has become a fixture of Albuquerque's holiday season, drawing bigger crowds and more vendors with each passing year under UNM Continuing Education's banner.
