Tamale festivals planned for Indio and Long Beach this December

The holiday season equals tamale season for two cities celebrating the traditional dish with a pair of festivals.

After being canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 29th edition of the Indio International Tamale Festival returns to downtown Indio Dec. 4-5 with a hefty lineup of more than 60 tamale vendors, but also a new focus on a robust musical lineup that includes nearly 30 bands throughout the weekend. The event is expected to attract thousands of people to the desert city.

“Tamales are incredible, but I think tamales are also a vessel to community and culture, so we’re thinking about the experience as a whole,” said Gopi Sangha, the festival’s new producer.

“This year we are redoing all of the experiences,” he said.

On the music side, the festival will include two stages and will be headlined by cumbia royalty La Sonora Dinamita along with Long Beach rock band Tijuana Panthers. The lineup also includes Morrissey and The Smiths tribute band Sweet & Tender Hooligans as well as local stars such as Giselle Woo & The Night Owls and Israel’s Arcade.

Besides the tamale vendors, who are expected to prepare up to 100,000 tamales per day, the festival will also feature tamale eating and cooking competitions as well as carnival rides. New this year, adults and kids can hop around in what’s being dubbed as the “World’s Biggest Bounce House.” The bounce house is an approximately 13,000-square-foot, 32-foot-tall structure that’s decked out with climbing towers, basketball hoops, slides, ball pits and confetti cannons.

Also expect to see Mexican wrestling with luchadores fighting it out in six daily matches as well as a 3,600-square-foot roller rink with skates available for rental.