The little festival that could: How a handful of friends started the Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival

In the autumn of 2003, San Francisco residents Phil Milner and his wife, Jenny Kerr, got a telephone from a chap instrumentalist who was gathering a location adjacent Zihuatanejo. Their person said immoderate of his pals successful “Zihua” were putting unneurotic an inaugural guitar festival scheduled for outpouring 2004. Would Phil and Jenny, who played Americana music, similar to perform?

The grassroots organization, made up mostly of expats and Zihua concern owners, would screen their question expenses, accommodations and meals if Phil and Jenny agreed to play. The founding members besides needed assistance with organizing the festival. Milner, an experienced signifier manager, said, “Sure, we’ll beryllium blessed to help.”

Something for the community

This year’s Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival volition beryllium held March 7-14. (ZIGF)

The inaugural festival successful 2004 featured 15 musicians — 8 section and 7 overseas — who played successful bars simultaneously implicit 4 days. From these humble beginnings, the Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival (ZIGF) has grown into an yearly eight-day festival with 12 venues and 17 shows that pull thousands of attendees and top-notch musicians from astir the globe. 

Held from the archetypal to the 2nd Saturday successful March, this year’s lawsuit volition instrumentality spot March 7–14, 2026.

Heidi Nygård, the ZIGF’s manager since 2016, said the festival has succeeded acknowledgment to the hard enactment of the founding members. “It began with a tiny radical of friends who loved euphony and wanted to bring thing much to the community.”  

Nygård says she is indebted to the festival’s archetypal director, Catherine Krantz, who ran the amusement from 2004–2014, astatine which clip Heidi became codirector, until taking the reins successful 2016. Throughout the festival’s 22-year history, volunteers person managed the full event. In summation to committee members who conscionable passim the year, 100+ folks unpaid for the festival week. 

“People emotion it,” Nygård said. “They get a badge and a T-shirt, and they get to bent retired with the musicians.” 

ZIGF is simply a nonprofit organization, and summons sales, donations, sponsorships and merchandise income screen the festival’s expenses. The ngo has remained the aforesaid since the conception archetypal took shape: Besides hosting world-class musicians, the festival generates tourism successful Zihuatanejo, benefiting businesses and the section community. It besides increases taste awareness, improving the prime of beingness for residents and tourists. 

The ngo for the festival remains the same: amended the prime of beingness successful Zihuatanejo for residents and tourists alike. (ZIGF)

Last but not least, an integral constituent of ZIGF’s ngo is presenting acquisition concerts to section schoolchildren, including those successful marginalized communities wherever euphony acquisition is not portion of the curriculum. 

More similar a vacation

In summation to its homegrown roots, ZIGF prides itself connected being a antithetic benignant of euphony festival. “It’s not arsenic stressful arsenic mean gigs,” said Nygård. “Musicians lone play 2 60-minute sets, positive articulation successful the opening and closing concerts. It’s much similar a vacation.” 

Another crushed ZIGF is antithetic from astir guitar festivals is that it mixes genres. The 2026 festival, for example, features 24 musicians, playing gypsy jazz, classical, contemporary, tango, fingerstyle, Americana, flamenco and more. The performers hail from far-flung countries, including Cuba, Argentina, Canada, Italy and the United States. Half of the guitarists are Mexican. 

The diverseness of musicians encourages collaboration and lasting friendships, explained Mariana Sánchez Zoletto, ZIGF committee subordinate who coordinates artists’ arrivals and departures. “A camaraderie develops among the musicians,” she said.

This is besides due to the fact that the musicians each enactment successful 1 hotel, which is rented successful its entirety by the organization. They rapidly go friends, said Milner, who is present a ZIGF committee subordinate and the existent festival emcee. 

“We each person breakfast, and we bent astir the pool,” helium continued. “Then the guitars travel out.” 

The musicians who execute astatine the Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival each enactment astatine the aforesaid edifice and each go friends. (ZIGF)

Milner encourages the musicians to invitation others to articulation them during their sets. “It reinforces the conception that euphony is the cosmopolitan language,” helium said.

Audience members are besides charmed by the uniqueness of the festival, according to Sánchez. “Something peculiar happens — with the place, the people. I’ve seen radical transform. By the 2nd oregon 3rd day, you spot a glow.”

Jossy Gallegos, a vocalist and guitarist from Petatlán, Guerrero, who has performed astatine ZIGF galore times, agreed. “The assemblage is truly present. They truly listen,” she said.

ZIGF offers a unsocial acquisition to musicians, she added. “It’s a lukewarm feeling. It’s what immoderate instrumentalist would want.” 

Inspiring young minds

Touching the lives of section schoolchildren done schoolhouse concerts continues to beryllium the festival’s astir important mission, Nygård said. Originally, students were invited to be concerts astatine a cardinal venue. 

“There wasn’t overmuch of an acquisition essence to these events.” 

The guitar festival teams up with P.R.I.S.M.A. to assistance beforehand creator acquisition successful susceptible communities. (ZIGF)

Today, ZIGF teams up with P.R.I.S.M.A. — a Mexican nonprofit founded by Morgan Szymanski that promotes creator acquisition successful susceptible communities — bringing festival musicians to the schools, wherever they contiguous intimate concerts to students, incorporating lessons astir philharmonic notes, tempo and their instruments. 

“It’s highly gratifying,” Milner said. “Some of these kids person ne'er seen an instrumentality played before. You don’t cognize however galore young minds we mightiness beryllium inspiring to instrumentality up an instrument.”

Playing for schoolchildren is simply a unsocial mode of connecting with them, says Gallegos, who started playing the guitar erstwhile she was nine. When the musicians spell to the schools, she said, it makes the kids consciousness important. 

“They consciousness seen,” she said.

After the concerts, students often enactment up for her autograph. “At 1 school, a batch of girls came up to maine and asked for my telephone number,” she recalled. “They inactive substance me. It’s similar a bond.”

“I don’t person capable words—what the festival does astatine schools,” Gallegos added. “It’s a small event, but determination is simply a large impact. The kids are capable to imagination different dreams.”

The Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival brings euphony into the lives of countless section youngsters, immoderate of whom person ne'er held an instrumentality before. (ZIGF)

Musicians, volunteers, committee members and audiences each hold ZIGF is an bonzer lawsuit that brings radical together. 

“The festival is universally loved by everybody,” said Milner. “It’s been a item of my nonrecreational life.”

How to attend

Visit www.zihuafest.com to acquisition beforehand tickets. Single tickets are besides disposable astatine each venue and during the presale successful downtown Zihuatanejo the week earlier the festival. Ticket holders indispensable besides marque reservations astatine each edifice venues owed to constricted seating. A required minimum depletion magnitude applies astatine meal shows.

Interested successful volunteering?

Apply online to unpaid for this community-led, community-funded and community-minded festival. There are unpaid opportunities successful 4 main areas: administrative, promotional, on-site and transportation. 

All volunteers person training, a escaped T-shirt and a complimentary festival pass, arsenic good arsenic gratitude and arsenic galore precocious fives arsenic they want! Visit www.zihuafest.com/volunteers to apply.

Businesses are invited to enactment the festival done sponsorship. For much information, interaction [email protected].

Peggy Sijswerda is simply a freelance writer who divides her clip betwixt San Miguel de Allende and the Netherlands. She writes astir travel, food, culture, and wellness and is the writer of Still Life with Sierra, a question memoir.