If you want to be at a zambomba this year, the first question has an official answer: in Jerez de la Frontera they run from 20 November to 25 December 2026, both days included. The city council’s ordinance sets those dates, and it was made public on 4 October.
What follows is the calendar. Which days there is a zambomba in Jerez and at what time, which ones you need a ticket for and which you do not, how to get to the city, and where else in Spain flamenco Christmas is programmed this December — because for years now it has not stayed in Jerez. If what you want first is to understand what actually happens inside a zambomba — what gets sung, why that low drum rumbles underneath everything, why the night always ends in bulerías — that is a separate read: Zambomba: the flamenco Christmas party of Jerez, 2026.
When are the zambombas of Jerez in 2026
From Friday 20 November to Friday 25 December. The ordinance moves the start two days earlier than the 2024 edition, which began on 22 November.
The general window for zambombas that do not need a municipal permit runs from 15:00 to 00:00. Nightlife venues, theatres and auditoriums keep the closing time on their own licence, so a theatre show can finish later.
Three more things worth knowing before you plan:
- Family or private zambombas held in people’s homes need no permit, as long as they fall inside the official period and stay strictly private.
- The ones that do need a permit have a deadline. A peña, a religious brotherhood or a bar putting on a zambomba with performers or amplified sound has to apply 10 working days in advance if it is indoors, and 15 working days if it is in the street or in an open space.
- Amplified sound is banned in streets and on terraces. What you hear outdoors is unamplified: voice, palmas, guitar, tambourine and the zambomba drum itself. Which is exactly how it should sound.
The Zambomba Contest is back too, with rules drawn up by the city’s culture department. Entries are judged on respect for the traditional forms, authenticity, Christmas atmosphere and whether the party spreads out into the neighbourhoods instead of concentrating downtown.
This is not just local custom. The Jerez zambomba has been listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Asset of Cultural Interest) in Andalusia’s General Catalogue of Historical Heritage since 2015, and Christmas in Jerez has been a Festivity of Tourist Interest of Andalusia since 2021.
The street, peña and brotherhood zambombas: free, and in the afternoon
This is the part that appears at no box office, and it is the one that most resembles a real zambomba. They are put on by flamenco peñas, religious brotherhoods and neighbourhood associations, they happen in a courtyard, a compás or a square, and they cluster at weekends and in the afternoon, inside that 15:00 to 00:00 window.
They are free, there are no numbered seats and you cannot book: you turn up, find a gap in the circle and sing. The city council publishes the list of authorised gatherings each season with dates, times and locations, and keeps updating it as the organisers file their applications. That list is what to check a few days before you go: the 2026 period opens on 20 November and permits keep coming in until fifteen working days before each party.
The practical advice is to go with a loose evening rather than a fixed itinerary. A neighbourhood zambomba does not start when the poster says. It starts when enough people have arrived.
Jerez on stage: the flamenco Christmas at the Teatro Villamarta
The Teatro Villamarta is where the ticketed side of a Jerez Christmas lives. These are the dates and times the theatre itself publishes:
- Saturday 28 November, 20:00 — De Nueva York a Jerez
- Sunday 29 November, 19:00 — Navidad Flamenca a lo Peláe, with María Peláe
- Thursday 3 December, 21:00 — Así canta Jerez en Navidad. Gira 15 aniversario
- Friday 4 December, 17:30 and 21:00 — Así canta Jerez en Navidad
- Saturday 5 December, 17:30 and 21:00 — Así canta Jerez en Navidad
- Sunday 6 December, 17:30 and 21:00 — Así canta Jerez en Navidad
- Thursday 10 December, 20:00 — La Zambomba de la Alegría
- Friday 11 December, 20:00 — Vienen de Jerez
- Thursday 17 December, 20:00 — María José Santiago
- Friday 18 December, 20:30 — Pitingo en Navidad
- Saturday 19 December, 17:30 and 20:30 — Jerez Flamenca Navidad
- Sunday 20 December, 20:00 — Farrucos y Fernández
The main block is those seven performances across four days of Así canta Jerez en Navidad, the show whose musical director is Luis de Perikín and which turns 15 this year. Jerez city council lists it identically on its own event page: same dates, same times. Tickets went on sale on 8 September, and in previous years they sold out with people queuing outside the theatre before dawn. This is not a plan to improvise the week before — if you are travelling for it, buy first and book the flight second.
The 15th-anniversary tour also leaves Andalusia. Several dates are already confirmed by the venues themselves: Cáceres, 28 November at 21:00, at the Palacio de Congresos; Badajoz, 29 November at 19:00, also at its Palacio de Congresos; Murcia, 8 December at 18:00, at the Auditorio Víctor Villegas; Córdoba, 9 December at 20:00, at the Gran Teatro; Barcelona, 12 December at 21:00, at the Palau de la Música Catalana, as part of the Barcelona Jazz Festival; Roquetas de Mar, 18 December at 20:00, at its Teatro Auditorio; and Mérida, 23 December at 20:00, at the Palacio de Congresos.
Jerez also has named zambombas that are announced later, once November is under way. Coral de los Reyes‘s Zambomba Flamenca Navidad de Coral, which she directs with her sister Ana de los Reyes and where they premiere flamenco carols of their own, is one of the ones people wait for each year; its 2026 date had not been published when this article closed.
Madrid: the Zambomba Flamenca de Jerez at the National Music Auditorium
The big date outside Andalusia is Friday 11 December at 19:30, in the Chamber Hall of the National Music Auditorium in Madrid. It is the Zambomba Flamenca de Jerez from the Andalucía Flamenca season, co-produced by Spain’s National Centre for Music Diffusion and the Andalusian Flamenco Institute, led from the singing by Coral de los Reyes.
It is not a one-off. The zambomba has a fixed slot in that season’s 2026-2027 run, which opens on 6 November with the Andalusian Young Flamenco Circuit winners’ gala and continues with Esperanza Fernández on 29 January, Kiki Morente on 26 February, Sandra Carrasco and David de Arahal on 19 March, Santiago Lara on 23 April and Chano Domínguez with Antonio Reyes on 7 May. A courtyard party earning an annual date in Madrid’s chamber-music hall says a good deal about how far it has travelled.
We know that stage well: it is where Flamenca Zambomba from Jerez was filmed, with Fernando Soto, Ezequiel Benítez, Carmen La Cantarota, Anabel Rosado, Tamara Tañé, Gema La Cantarota and Israel López Tubio singing, and Javier Ibáñez and Paco León on guitars.
Madrid has a second, smaller door, closer to a tablao: the Teatro Flamenco Madrid runs its Zambomba Flamenca over four performances, from 10 to 13 December — one more than last year — on Calle del Pez.
Granada, Seville, Cádiz, Málaga and Barcelona: the rest of the map
Granada. Granada city council’s Patrimonio Flamenco season takes four zambombas in a row to La Chumbera, in the Sala Enrique Morente up in the Sacromonte, all at 20:30: on 4 December, Graná canta por pascua; on the 5th, De la Zambra a Belén; on the 11th, Los Heredia; and on the 12th, Panderetá Cantes de Pascua. It is by far the densest programme outside Jerez — and the venue looks across at the Alhambra, which does not hurt. And over on Campo del Príncipe, Teatro Flamenco Granada runs its own Zambomba Granavidad on 12 December at 20:45 and 13 December at 13:00.
Seville. On Sunday 13 December at 20:30, the Cartuja Center CITE hosts the eleventh edition of Navidad en familia by the Farrucos and Fernández families: two dynasties of dance and song together, singing carols as a party. On Sunday 20 December at 20:30, in the same hall, Navidad Flamenca a lo Peláe. And the Teatro Flamenco Sevilla has its Zambomba Flamenca from 18 to 20 December.
Cádiz. The Gran Teatro Falla opens December with two nights of flamenco carols at 20:00: on Tuesday the 1st, Puro Cádiz; on Wednesday the 2nd, Villancicos Lumbre. Cádiz has its own accent — a Cádiz Christmas sings in tangos and in the city’s own bulerías, not the Jerez ones — and it is worth a separate trip.
Málaga. The Teatro Cervantes puts two flamenco dates in its Christmas season: on Saturday 19 December at 20:30, Navidad Flamenca a lo Peláe; and on Tuesday 22 December at 20:00, the Zambomba of Alejandro Estrada, the Málaga singer who has been taking flamenco carols onto that stage since 2007 with a cast of more than fifteen artists. And on Calle Lazcano, Teatro Flamenco Málaga runs its Zambomba Málagavidad on 5 and 6 December, both at 13:00.
Barcelona. The Teatro Flamenco Barcelona, in El Born, programmes its Zambomba Flamenca on 5 and 6 December — the show on the 6th is at 13:00, which makes it an easy early-afternoon plan. Proof that the party now travels well beyond the south.
What to expect at your first zambomba, and how to get to Jerez
Getting there is easier than most people assume. Jerez de la Frontera has its own airport, and the railway station serving it sits just outside the terminal building: it is the terminus of the C-1 commuter line and the very next stop is Jerez’s own station, so you can go from the plane to the old town without a taxi. The same track carries the Medium Distance trains on the Seville–Cádiz line, which stop in Jerez — so from Seville or from Cádiz a zambomba is an afternoon out, not a journey.
What you will actually find. In the street and in the peñas, a circle. There is no stage and no division of roles: everyone sings, the palmas carry the compás, and underneath it all rumbles the low drum the party is named after. Nobody will ask you to sing, and nobody will think it odd if you do.
Three practical things. First: Jerez’s old town is walkable, and the neighbourhood zambombas set up in the courtyards and squares of the Santiago and San Miguel districts, so the sensible move is to leave the car and walk. Second: it will be cold and much of the party is outdoors, with bonfire smoke and stalls frying pestiños and buñuelos in the middle of it. Third: the theatre shows start on time and the street ones do not, and both of those are normal.
And one honest warning. A peña zambomba is not a show staged for visitors. It is the people of the neighbourhood singing to themselves, and that is precisely what makes it worth being there. You go in as a guest, not as an audience.
And if you cannot go: flamenco Christmas, filmed and complete
If December does not work for the trip, the party has been filmed in full and can be watched from home. From Jerez, Así canta Jerez en Navidad was recorded in the Parish of Santiago, in the neighbourhood it is named after, and Zambombas from Jerez returns to the city with Felipa del Moreno, Tamara Tañé, Fernando Soto, Ezequiel Benítez and Jesús Méndez singing, Luis de Perikín as musical director and Diego del Morao on guitar.
From Málaga there is Flamenco Christmas Carols by Alejandro Estrada, the same party the Cervantes programmes in December. Christmas in Málaga and Cádiz brings together Juan José Villar dancing, Alejandro Estrada singing, Diego Magallanes on piano and Emilio Martín on violin. Andalusia at Christmas does the full circuit, with Remache and Alejandro Estrada singing, Raquel and Ana — “Las Mónicas” — on choir and Niño de la Leo on guitar. And Tomacastaña. Flamenco Christmas Carol gives a whole show to the flamenco carol of Cádiz, led by Triana Alcázar, Juan Francisco Rodríguez and Antonio Parra Cardín singing, with Joaquín Linera “El Niño de la Leo” as musical director.
They are all in the ALL FLAMENCO catalogue, alongside the rest of the collection, and you watch them with a subscription.
