The Painted Hat Festival in La Pintada Panama has a New Date. December 4, 5 and 6 of 2026.
The National Painted Hat Festival (Festival Nacional del Sombrero Pintao) is an annual cultural celebration held in the picturesque town of La Pintada, Coclé Province, widely considered the cradle of this traditional Panamanian craft. Panama’s First Lady is pictured below.
The festival honors the iconic sombrero pintao, a hand-woven straw hat intricately crafted from plant fibers and natural dyes, which was inscribed onto UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The celebration, which was scheduled for October 23-25, will now take place on December 4, 5 and 6, 2026. The announcement comes after the event was suspended on October 13 in solidarity with the families affected by the October 9 earthquake in the provinces of Coclé, Herrera, Los Santos, Veraguas and other regions of the country.
With the new date, the festival seeks to bring together visitors and artisans once again to celebrate one of Panama’s most representative traditions and support those who keep alive the art of making the pintao hat.
This 14th edition is uniquely designated as the “Festival Solidario del Sombrero Pintao” (Solidarity Painted Hat Festival) to help drive economic recovery and support local communities.
The festival’s activities normally include a magnificent parade where hundreds of locals and visitors march down the streets proudly sporting their authentic sombreros pintaos along with traditional pollera attire, folk music (tamboritos), and ox-drawn carts.
This is called the Parade of a Thousand Hats (Desfile de los Mil Sombreros). Dozens of local booths showcase master hat-makers demonstrating the laborious technique of weaving intricate turns into the hats, a process that can take up to several months for high-end pieces.
Judges grade individual hats based on their weaving accuracy, precision of the patterns, and authenticity. Contests also spotlight specialized skills like braid knitting. Below is Panama President Mulino.
