When is the Cartagena Music Festival 2027?
The 2027 Cartagena Festival de Música runs from Saturday 9 January to Sunday 17 January. That's nine days of classical music, and the festival uses Cartagena's walled city as its stage rather than a single concert hall. In Spanish the festival calls its repertoire "música académica", which is what you would call concert-hall classical music.
The opening concert is on Saturday 9 January at 7pm at the Teatro Adolfo Mejía. If you are only coming for part of the festival, that opening night is the date we'd plan around first.
The festival's own website, cartagenamusicfestival.com, is the place to check the artists, the concert schedule and how tickets are sold. We'd treat it as the only source for times and venues, since a festival programme can change after it's announced.
Where we are in relation to the festival
We're not in the walled city. We're on Barú Island, on the Bahía de Cholón, and the crossing from Cartagena on our boat takes between 30 minutes and an hour. Our boat has limited capacity, so we ask you to reserve your place on it, and during a festival week that matters more than usual.
That distance is the whole trade. You hear the concerts in the city and come back to six rooms across three houses on the edge of the mangroves, rather than to a hotel room in the old town.
The houses
Our six rooms sit in three houses, and each house can be taken on its own:
- Villa Pinto: designed by Simón Vélez and Gustavo Pinto in guadua bamboo and timber, with three bedrooms (the Estrella family room, the Cuerno Room and the Fuego Room) and space for up to eight guests. Each bedroom has a king bed and its own bathroom; Estrella also has three single beds.
- Casita Veranera: two rooms, Rhizo and Avi, each with a large balcony looking over the Ciénaga de Cholón.
- Casita Laguna: a single room with an outdoor bathroom and its own gazebo.
For a family, Villa Pinto works as one villa, and friends travelling with you can take Casita Veranera separately. You will sleep in two houses but share the same shore.
Evening concerts and getting back to the island
Plan your crossing back to Barú before you buy tickets for an evening concert. The opening night starts at 7pm, and a return to the island after a concert is something to arrange with us in advance, not on the night itself.
If you intend to go to several evening concerts in a row, we'd be candid: one or two nights in the city at the start or end of your stay can be simpler than crossing the bay every evening. Many people who come for a week of music split it that way, with the concert-heavy nights in town and the quieter days with us.
A festival day from Barú
The shape that works best is the island in the morning and the city in the evening.
- At dawn: kayaking and birdwatching in the Barú mangroves, which begin at the edge of our shore. We can arrange the outing for you.
- Lunch: Ancalá Waterfront, our restaurant on the water, is open daily from 11am to 4pm. Chef Pedro Mosqueda cooks a premium BBQ menu, and the restaurant is open to residents and non-residents alike, so friends staying in the city can come out by boat or by car to join you.
- Late afternoon: the crossing to Cartagena, with time to walk the old town before a concert. Our page on the walled city from Barú covers how we'd spend those hours.
Taking the whole place for a festival group
You can rent all three houses as a single villa. The Full House gives a group six bedrooms on one property, which suits a party travelling together for the festival, whether that's a family, a group of friends or musicians who would rather not stay in the city. Ask us early: January is in demand across Cartagena, and one booking for the whole place closes it to everyone else.
Arriving and leaving
From Rafael Núñez International Airport to our door is about an hour, and we can arrange transfers in both directions. On the day you fly home, leave us three hours before your departure time. If your last concert is on Sunday 17 January and your flight is the next morning, count the crossing and the road into that three hours.
Costs to know about
We charge a resort fee of 20 USD per night. Foreign residents pay no tax on hotel accommodation in Colombia; for Colombian residents, IVA is already included in the rate. Festival tickets are separate and come from the festival, not from us.