Navigating VallartaPuerto Vallarta is about to get a little louder this fall.
The HEAT Latin Music Awards are coming to Puerto Vallarta on November 5, marking the first time the awards have ever been held in Mexico.
The big night will take place at the Puerto Vallarta International Convention Center and will wrap up HEAT Week, a six-day celebration running October 31 through November 5 at locations around Jalisco.
For Vallarta, this is a pretty big deal.
The HEAT Latin Music Awards started in the Dominican Republic in 2015 and have spent more than a decade celebrating Latin music and artists across pop, urban, tropical and other genres. This year, Puerto Vallarta gets to welcome the artists, music industry and international audience that come along with it.
And organizers are making sure the event feels distinctly Mexican.
The traditional HEAT globe trophies are getting a Jalisco-inspired makeover using Tonalá ceramics, Wixárika bead and yarn work, hand-blown glass, piteado leatherwork and traditional Mexican toy-making.
That’s a nice touch. Instead of simply bringing an international awards show to Mexico, the event will take a little piece of Jalisco home with every winner.
The timing couldn’t be much better either.
HEAT Week overlaps with Día de Muertos, giving people coming for the awards a chance to experience one of Mexico’s most recognizable traditions while they’re here.
We don’t yet know how many visitors the event will bring to Vallarta or what the economic impact will be. Those numbers haven’t been released, so we’re not going to guess.
But we do know this: an established Latin American music awards organization chose Puerto Vallarta for its first-ever event in Mexico.
That’s another nice win for our city.
Vallarta may be famous for its beaches, sunsets, restaurants and welcoming community, but increasingly we’re seeing the city attract major cultural, entertainment and international events as well.
Come November, we can add Latin music awards to the list.
Sources: Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board, August 18, 2026; Billboard, August 13, 2026; Remezcla, August 13, 2026; HEAT Latin Music Awards and Jalisco event information.