News & Updates about Sunshine Festival
From updates, to News Articles and beyond - you'll find more information here!
Call for Vendors:
2026 Sunshine Festival 🌞
We’re officially opening vendor registration for the 2026 Sunshine Festival, and we’d love to build this next chapter with you.
Sunshine Festival is still emerging - rooted, growing, and deeply community-powered. What started as a vision is becoming a shared gathering shaped by the people who show up, create, feed, build, and bring their magic to the sunshine! Vendors are not an add-on here; you are part of the heartbeat.
What we’re building
A place-rooted, outdoor festival centered on creativity, culture, and connection - where local makers, food vendors, artists, and small businesses are visible, valued, and supported.
Our approach to vendor participation
We’re intentionally keeping this accessible. As a growing festival, we’re using a “give what you can” model for vendor registration - because we believe in meeting people where they are and building something meaningful together. If you want to be part of this and believe in what we’re creating, there’s space for you here!
No gatekeeping. No corporate vibes. Just mutual investment, transparency, and shared care.
Interested?
Complete the vendor registration form by clicking the "Register Today" button below.
We’re excited to curate a vibrant mix of vendors and will follow up with next steps, logistics, and timing details after you register.
If you’ve been looking for a festival that values community as much as commerce - this is your invitation.
Let’s build something together that matters.
2026 Sunshine Festival Poster:
Call for Artists
The Sunshine Festival invites artists to submit original artwork for our 2026 poster!
Each year, our poster becomes the face of the festival: celebrating rural innovation, accessibility, creativity, outdoor experience, art, and technology. For 2026, we are commissioning a single winning design to feature on our 11x17 festival poster.
The winning artist will receive a $250 award, and their work will be featured across Sunshine Festival marketing and promotions. Click here to learn more.
Festival Review
We ran a full post-festival review that combined on-site observations with structured feedback from volunteers, workshop leaders, musicians, and attendees. Inputs included quick surveys, debrief calls, and written notes on operations (signage, parking, food flow), accessibility, safety, and programming balance (music vs. workshops/excursions). We synthesized the themes, prioritized fixes, and turned them into clear actions for 2026: improved wayfinding, expanded food options, better accessibility, refined scheduling, and limited on-site dry camping. Read the full findings and action plan in the Root Year Debrief report.
Special Thanks!
Special thanks to the Taos News for featuring an ad for the Sunshine Festival in the August 28 - September 3 Tempo. At least a dozen of our root year attendees were thanks to your ad!
Questa’s First-Ever Pitch Contest Fuels Local Economic Growth
"Local business owners in Questa received a major boost on Thursday, August 14, at the first-ever Questa Business Bridge (QBB) Pitch Contest. The event, created by the Questa Economic Development Fund (QEDF), was designed to support the local economy by providing capital for new ventures and existing businesses. Originally, the QEDF had allocated $20,000 in grant funding, but in a last-minute show of support for local entrepreneurs, the Questa Credit Union added an additional $2,500, bringing the total prize pool to $22,500.
Held at the Questa Public Library, the contest was reminiscent of the popular show “Shark Tank” where entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of investors"... read more
Photo by E. Wilde Questa Business Bridge Pitch Contest Participants