From October 1 to 23 there is a Jazz Fest, with concerts at the Teatro de la Ciudad and open master classes. Which businesses can make something of it, and how.
From October 1 to 23 the Playa del Carmen Jazz Fest takes place, with concerts at the Teatro de la Ciudad and a series of open classes at Explayarte.
It is an independent festival, now in its third edition, running since 2024, and this year it brings musicians from Mexico, the United States, Switzerland and Greece.
For a business here that means something concrete: there are people moving around the city on several October nights, on dates you can know in advance.
What there is, exactly
Concerts from October 1 to 4, doors at seven in the evening at the Teatro de la Ciudad. Emmanuel Mora Trío with Rubén Pastor, Sampling is Beautiful with Kike Pat, Santa Sabina with Scott Paddock, and Sole Giménez with Ieoushua Barragán.
Tickets are sold at teatrodelaciudad.com, at Explayarte, or at the box office on the day of the concert, with the option to pay in interest free monthly installments.
And master classes across the whole month, nearly all of them free and with registration in advance, at Explayarte. From October 1 to 23, with musicians from Mexico, the United States, Switzerland and Greece.
The full program is on the festival's site.
Who comes to this
Here is what is worth understanding before you decide whether it helps you.
This is not beach tourism. It is a local and regional audience, people from Playa, Cancún and Tulum going out on a weeknight. Plus the musicians, their crews and whoever comes with them.
And it is an audience with a useful trait: someone who buys a ticket for a jazz concert on a Thursday at seven in the evening is not looking for the cheapest thing around. They go out to eat before or after, they park, and they have a drink.
If your business is near the Teatro de la Ciudad or Explayarte, those days bring foot traffic that is not normally there.
What you can do this week
There is time for three things, and none of them means inventing anything.
Adjust your hours to the concert nights. The events start at seven. Whoever closes at eight misses everyone who comes out at nine thirty looking for dinner.
Have something ready for the people coming from the theater. You do not need to invent a product: it is enough that the kitchen is still open, that there is a table, or that the open sign is still on.
And tell your people. A message saying you are open later on those days costs nothing and can bring in several of them.
What you prepare for next time
And here is what all of this is really worth.
These dates are not a surprise. The festival has its own site, a published program and dates set weeks in advance. The same goes for the Ironman in Cozumel in November, for the fairs, for the conventions in Cancún.
A business that finds out the week it starts picks up whatever falls its way. One that has it on the calendar since August decides what it wants to capture.
What I would do this week: open a sheet and write down every event in the region that already has a date for the next six months. Festivals, races, conventions, seasons. That gives you the calendar almost nobody has.
It costs nothing and it is the difference between reacting and planning.
And one more thing worth noticing
Years ago there was another jazz festival in the destination, and the people who were around then say it helped position Playa del Carmen and the Riviera Maya as more than a beach.
This one is not that one, and it is smaller: three editions in, holding itself up as an independent project. But it points in the same direction, which is positioning the place as a cultural destination and not only a sunny one.
That is one of the few things a small business cannot do on its own and does benefit from others doing. A destination with more reasons to visit is a destination with more good months.
Sharing it takes a minute, and it helps more than it looks.
Where to start
Look at the festival program and see whether any of those dates crosses your business, by location or by hours.
And if none of them does, that is fine. But open the events calendar sheet anyway, because the next one will cross you and this time you will know in advance.
At Kiin Hub we have the Mesa Kiin: putting your case in front of people who know different things. Tax and accounting, labor, value proposition, process and technology. If you want to build your season calendar and are not sure where to start, bring it and we will work through it.
Program: playadelcarmenjazzfest.org
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