Día de Muertos: Love Never Dies Ball

About This Event

The museum's Auxiliary Board throws its 12th annual Day of the Dead gala — open galleries, a silent auction, and dancing to Pachanga Chicago's DJ Memo Duarte, all to benefit the museum.

This is the fundraising counterpart to NMMA's free, public Día de Muertos exhibition down the hall — same building, same holiday, very different night. 'Creative Cocktail' is the dress code, Chicago restaurants supply the food, and Impakkto Sonidero plus DJ Memo Duarte keep the courtyard dancing once the silent auction winds down. The ball has run every year since the museum and Siempre Mujer magazine launched it together in the mid-2010s, built around the holiday's actual theme — honoring people you've lost by celebrating that they lived at all, not a costume-party version of the same two words.

Worth knowing: tickets run $125 in advance and $150 at the door, it's 21-and-up, and the museum's own ticketing says all sales are final — valet parking is available if you'd rather not deal with 19th Street.