Balloon Fiesta brings hundreds of thousands of visitors to Albuquerque. It did not bring more calls to police. From Oct. 3 to 10, people called APD about 450 times a day, about normal for this time of year, a Ledger count of the city’s calls-for-service record shows.
What changed was the calls officers start themselves. Those fell by a third.
The biggest drop came after dark
Officer-started calls fell in every part of the day, but most in the evening. From 6 p.m. to midnight they dropped from about 38 a night to about 12. Calls from the public at those hours barely moved.
Officers started fewer calls than in any week since March
The city’s record splits calls two ways. Most come from someone picking up the phone. A smaller share are coded “onsite,” and the Ledger reads those as calls an officer starts, such as stopping someone who looks suspicious. A 2024 APD release counted “self-initiated calls by officers” separately.
Fiesta’s first week had 752 of those calls. The fewest in any other week since mid-March was 870.
Weeks run Saturday to Friday, from March 14, the first full week in the Ledger's copy of the city's record, to Oct. 3 to 9, Fiesta's first week (shaded). Officer-started means the record's three ONSITE codes, the Ledger's reading of them. Calls from the public ran between about 2,950 and 3,400 a week the whole time. Source: City of Albuquerque APD calls-for-service feed, the Ledger's copy as of Oct. 13, 2026.
Show the numbers
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| March 14 | 870 |
| March 21 | 876 |
| March 28 | 935 |
| April 4 | 1,518 |
| April 11 | 1,403 |
| April 18 | 1,397 |
| April 25 | 1,350 |
| May 2 | 1,433 |
| May 9 | 1,126 |
| May 16 | 1,196 |
| May 23 | 1,194 |
| May 30 | 1,024 |
| June 6 | 1,151 |
| June 13 | 1,026 |
| June 20 | 1,146 |
| June 27 | 1,071 |
| July 4 | 1,091 |
| July 11 | 1,155 |
| July 18 | 1,015 |
| July 25 | 1,163 |
| Aug. 1 | 1,183 |
| Aug. 8 | 1,092 |
| Aug. 15 | 1,140 |
| Aug. 22 | 1,072 |
| Aug. 29 | 1,225 |
| Sep. 5 | 1,246 |
| Sep. 12 | 1,145 |
| Sep. 19 | 1,008 |
| Sep. 26 | 992 |
| Oct. 3 | 752 |
Officers were working Fiesta
Before Fiesta opened, APD said additional officers would be assigned to Balloon Fiesta operations, with more patrols around hotels and units working car thefts and property crimes. The city’s record does not say where each officer was, so it cannot show whether that is why those calls fell.
The count runs through Oct. 10. The city’s record stops at 6 p.m. on Oct. 11, Fiesta’s last day, and there is no earlier Fiesta to compare against: the city keeps only about six months of calls.
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