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Festival de Octubre · Immersive experience · CEART Mexicali
Opens Thursday, October 15, 2026 at the CEART Convention Center · 25th Festival de Octubre
Time until opening day
October 15 – December 30, 2026 · Monday to Sunday, 10:00 AM – 8:00 PM
As of October 4, 2026 the state culture department has published what was missing: the exhibition runs from October 15 to December 30, 2026, opens Monday to Sunday from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM, and tickets are sold on TicketOne. For now only Friday, October 16 is on sale, at weekend prices: $400 MXN for adults and $300 for seniors, students and children, service fee included. Two gaps remain: Monday-to-Thursday pricing, which will show up once those dates open, and how to claim the 10,000 complimentary tickets. We update this page as soon as they are published.
It is an immersive exhibition: rather than hanging originals on a wall, it projects the work at wall scale through video mapping and puts you inside it. It gathers more than 300 images of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and combines them with physical recreations of the spaces where they lived and worked. It is directed by promoter Bernardo Noval, and it is the same production that premiered in Mexico in 2024 — after runs in London and Washington — and later toured Querétaro and Campeche.
The visit lasts about an hour and moves from the physical to the digital: it starts in the recreation of Diego Rivera's studio, passes through Frida's bedroom and a traditional Mexican kitchen, continues into the immersive projection room and ends in a virtual reality room with headsets. There is also a drawing area designed for kids, which is what makes it a family outing rather than just a museum visit.
In Mexicali it is brought in by the Baja California government as the centerpiece of the Festival de Octubre, in the same CEART Convention Center that hosted the Van Gogh immersive show. The state reported an investment of 3.5 million pesos per exhibition — the other one is "Desafío Dalí", in Tijuana — and announced 20,000 complimentary tickets split between the two.
What this production has included at its previous venues, per the exhibition's official site and the press that covered it in Querétaro. The exact Mexicali setup has not been published and may differ.
The exhibition does not come alone: it is the centerpiece of the 25th Festival de Octubre, themed "Territorios de Paz" this year and running from October 1 to November 1, 2026 across all seven municipalities of Baja California. The state government announced more than 100 free activities — in theaters, schools, parks, plazas and markets — and 32 projects selected out of 428 public submissions. State Culture Secretary Alma Delia Ábrego Ceballos laid out the program; Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda framed the festival around the idea that "culture is a right that used to be seen only as a privilege of the elites".
General admission is paid: tickets are sold on TicketOne in one-hour time slots from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM. For Friday, October 16, the only date on sale as of October 4, an adult ticket costs $400 MXN and a senior, student or child ticket $300, service fee included. The state culture listing advertises the price "from $300". Monday-to-Thursday pricing is not out yet; at the Van Gogh show in the same hall, weekdays were $100 cheaper. Separately, the state announced 20,000 complimentary tickets for the two immersive exhibitions, 10,000 for this one. El Imparcial reported they go to public schools in outlying areas and vulnerable groups, booked through the CEART centers; SanDiegoRed and Uniradio described them as access for "children, young people and families". How to claim them has still not been published.
The Van Gogh immersive show occupied this very CEART Convention Center. It is a useful comparison: Frida keeps the same hours and a slightly lower weekend price. Note: these are that exhibition's figures, from 2024, not Frida Kahlo's.
The Centro Estatal de las Artes sits on Calzada de los Presidentes at Ciudad Victoria, in the Río Nuevo area. The Convention Center is the large hall inside that same complex — the one Van Gogh used, and the animatronic dinosaurs show in 2025 — so if you went to either of those, it is exactly the same place. There is on-site parking. Coming from Calexico or the Imperial Valley, check the border wait first: this is a one-hour outing, but the crossing can take three.
Run, hours and pricing verified on October 4, 2026 on the Baja California culture department listing (event 581) and on TicketOne, where prices are those of the Friday, October 16 performance. Dates, venue, content, investment and complimentary tickets verified on August 25, 2026 across three independent reports of the official Baja California government announcement (El Imparcial, Uniradio Informa and Infobaja). Production details — Bernardo Noval's direction, the route and the rooms — are cross-checked between the exhibition's official site and the press that covered it in Querétaro in 2024. The prices and hours shown under "the closest reference" belong to the 2024-2025 Van Gogh exhibition in that same hall, not to this show. As of October 4, Monday-to-Thursday pricing and the complimentary ticket mechanism were still unpublished. Illustrative image of a projection room, digitally generated: it does not reproduce any Frida Kahlo work or the actual installation.
