Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias 2027 runs from Thursday 28 January to Sunday 31 January 2027. It's four days of ticketed conversations with writers and thinkers, held in the city's theatres, cloisters and convention halls. We're across the water on Barú Island, and this page sets out what the festival has published so far and how we'd plan the week from our side of the bay.
When is Hay Festival Cartagena 2027?
The festival runs 28-31 January 2027, Thursday to Sunday. Those are the dates on Hay Festival's own site, which also lists the 2027 editions in Nairobi in May and in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, from late May into June. Cartagena is the first of the year.
Two dates before that matter as much as the festival itself:
- 25 January (Monday): the box office at the Centro de Convenciones opens and stays open through 31 January.
- 26 January: the box office at the Teatro Adolfo Mejía opens, also through 31 January.
If you'd rather collect or buy tickets in person, arriving on the weekend before gives you a clear day or two to do it.
How do tickets work?
Tickets go on sale online in November 2026, according to the festival's ticket page. Each talk is ticketed on its own, and you choose the sessions yourself. You'll need the ticket, printed or on your phone, to get into every event.
Read the terms before you buy, because they are strict:
- No changes: once you've reserved a talk, you can't swap it for another time. Check your dates and session times against each other before you pay.
- Cancellation: you must notify the festival by 11 January 2027, by email to tickets@hayfestival.org. Bank fees are deducted from the refund.
- Lost tickets: the organisers don't reprint lost or damaged tickets. Keep the electronic copy.
- Students: talks are free for the university community, up to 10 tickets per student, subject to availability and with proof of student status.
Our advice is simple: when sales open in November, book the two or three sessions you'd be sorry to miss first, then build the rest of your days around them.
Where does the festival take place?
The festival uses several venues across the walled city and Getsemaní, and the 2027 list hasn't been published yet. The 2025 list gives you the shape of it.
The Centro de Convenciones is the largest hub. In 2025 it hosted talks in three separate spaces, the Auditorio Getsemaní, the Explanada and the Salón Barahona, and it's where the first box office opens on 25 January. If your sessions are clustered here, you can spend most of a day in one building.
The Teatro Adolfo Mejía is the city's theatre and the second box office from 26 January. It was a 2025 venue and is the one most visitors will pass through at least once.
The Universidad de Cartagena lent two of its colonial buildings in 2025: the Claustro de San Agustín, where talks were held in the library, and the Claustro de la Merced. Sessions in a cloister are smaller than the theatre events, and worth seeking out in the programme for that reason.
The festival also runs events outside the historic centre. The 2025 list included community venues across Bolívar, among them the Biblioteca Popular de Playa Blanca, here on Barú. We'll be watching to see whether the 2027 programme comes back to the island.
Why stay on Barú for the festival?
Because the festival is a city event and our houses are not in the city. You spend the day in the walled city, then come back across the water to Cholón Bay, where the evenings are quiet and the mangroves start at the edge of our land.
The practical facts:
- The crossing: our boat takes 30 minutes to an hour from Cartagena. It has limited capacity, so reserve your seats when you book rather than on the day.
- The airport: from Rafael Núñez International Airport to our door is about one hour, and we can arrange the transfer both ways. On the way out, plan to leave us three hours before your flight.
- The houses: we have six rooms across three houses, built in guadua bamboo by Simón Vélez with Gustavo Pinto. If you're coming as a group of friends for the festival, the whole place can be rented as a villa.
- The costs to know: foreign residents pay no tax on hotel accommodation, and we charge a resort fee of 20 USD per night.
How we'd plan the four days
This is how we'd do it, though the programme will decide the details once it's out.
Arrive by Monday 25 or Tuesday 26 January. That gives you a day on the island to settle in before the crowds, and the box offices are open if you need them.
Group your sessions into city days. Rather than crossing for one talk at a time, pick the days with the most sessions you want and spend those whole days in town. Send us your session times when you book and we'll talk through the boat with you.
Keep one festival day for the island. Four days of talks is a lot. Take a morning in a kayak in the Barú mangroves, then lunch at Ancalá Waterfront, our restaurant on the water, where Chef Pedro Mosqueda serves a premium BBQ menu. It's open daily from 11am to 4pm, to residents and visitors alike.
Stay a night or two after Sunday. The festival closes on 31 January. A quiet Monday on Cholón Bay is a better end to the week than an early flight.
We'll update our thinking once the 2027 programme is announced, but the dates and the ticket rules above come straight from the festival and won't change.