Inti Raymi in Cusco: What Happens on June 24 and How to Watch

Short answer: Inti Raymi is Cusco's Festival of the Sun, a reenactment of the Inca solstice ceremony performed in Quechua by hundreds of actors every June 24. It moves through three stages: the Qorikancha in the morning, the Plaza de Armas late in the morning and the esplanade of Sacsayhuamán in the afternoon. The first two are free to watch from the street. Sacsayhuamán needs a grandstand ticket, sold only through Teleticket and in soles, or a free spot on the hills around the field. Hotels and Machu Picchu tickets for that week sell out months ahead.

Inti Raymi: the Inca festival and the modern reenactment

Inti Raymi ("festival of the sun" in Quechua) was the main Inca celebration of the June solstice, the shortest day in the southern hemisphere, when the Sapa Inca asked the sun to return. The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega credits its creation to the Inca Pachacuti. The last one held with an emperor present was in 1535, and the Spanish banned it soon after.

What you see today is a modern production. In 1944 a group of Cusco intellectuals revived the festival as theater, with a script written by Faustino Espinoza Navarro, who also played the Inca. It has run every year since. Peru declared it Cultural Heritage of the Nation by Law 27431 on March 3, 2001.

So be clear about what you are buying. Inti Raymi is a large, well-rehearsed civic pageant in Quechua, with real pride behind it, and it is theater. The living Andean ceremonies are the small offerings families make to the earth, which we explain in our guide to the despacho offering. Both are worth seeing. They are different things.

June is Cusco's jubilee month, with parades almost every day, and Corpus Christi usually falls in the same weeks. June 24 is also the Día del Cusco. The city is full, loud and expensive from mid June on.

The three stages of June 24

The ceremony takes most of the day and moves uphill through the city. Times shift a little each year. The published schedule for the 2026 edition, per Infobae, was 8:00 a.m. at the Qorikancha, 11:00 a.m. at the Plaza de Armas and 1:00 p.m. at Sacsayhuamán.

Qorikancha, morning

The Inca greets the sun from the terraces of the Qorikancha, the Inca Temple of the Sun with the Santo Domingo convent built on top of it. Actors fill the gardens below Avenida El Sol in the colors of the four regions of the empire. A single grandstand of about 350 seats faces the gardens. Everyone else watches from the avenue, free, packed by 7 a.m. and with a partial view.

Plaza de Armas, late morning

The procession carries the Inca and the Coya on litters into the main square for the "meeting of the times", in which the Inca addresses the mayor of Cusco, and the coca leaf ceremony. The Plaza de Armas is the free stage, and the one most visitors see well. Arrive two hours early and take a spot against the barriers on the cathedral side. Some restaurants with balconies on the square sell seats with lunch for that morning. We do not sell them and cannot vouch for them.

Sacsayhuamán, afternoon

The main act is on the grass esplanade below the walls of Sacsayhuamán, at about 12,139 ft (3,700 m), a 30-minute uphill walk from the plaza. The Inca receives reports from the four suyus of the empire, Antisuyo, Chinchaysuyo, Contisuyo and Qollasuyo, drinks chicha with the sun, lights the sacred fire and presides over the llama offering. The offering is theater: the animal walks off afterward. Music and dancing close the show after about two hours. Everything is in Quechua, so read a summary of the script before you go.

Free spots or a grandstand seat

You can see Inti Raymi without paying a cent, and most of the crowd does. A paid seat buys a view of the Sacsayhuamán stage, where the free option is a hillside a long way from the action.

The Empresa Municipal de Festejos del Cusco (EMUFEC) runs the sale. For the 2026 edition it sold 4,116 seats in the two ticketed venues, per Infobae on June 17, 2026: 3,766 seats at Sacsayhuamán in four categories from S/490 to S/850, and 350 seats at the Qorikancha at S/235. Combined packages for both venues ran from S/690 to S/1,030. Every seat sold out a week before the day. The prices and categories change each year, so take the table on this page as a dated reference and check the current sale.

Our opinion: pay for Sacsayhuamán if you came to Cusco for this day, and buy the mid-price category. Every grandstand beats the hillside, where you watch a field of small figures with the Cusco sun on your neck. If you are in Cusco by chance that week, watch the Qorikancha from the avenue and the Plaza de Armas from the barriers, and spend the afternoon on a hillside with binoculars and a hat.

How to book, and how not to get cheated

EMUFEC sells tickets only through the Teleticket platform, online, in soles. There are no in-person sales, no agencies and no official resellers, as EMUFEC stated when it warned about fraud in May 2025. The scams follow one pattern: a tour company or a messaging number offers seats priced in US dollars, often above US$300, and delivers nothing. A price in dollars means a fake ticket. Buy on Teleticket as soon as the sale opens, usually in the spring. In 2026 the seats were gone by mid June.

Three things sell out before the festival seats do. Hotels, because Cusco fills for the whole jubilee month: book by March, and read our guide to hotels near the Plaza de Armas to pick a street you can walk home on when the roads are closed. Machu Picchu tickets and trains, because the days around June 24 are among the busiest of the year: our Machu Picchu tours in June hold the entry and the train for you, and our Machu Picchu tickets guide explains why the time slots go early. And Inca Trail permits, because late June dates go within days of the permit sale.

Make the festival day three or four in Cusco. Arrive two days earlier to adjust to 11,150 ft (3,400 m), and see the Qorikancha and Sacsayhuamán empty on our Cusco city tour before you see them full. For a ceremony where a community makes a real offering and you are the guest, look at our trips with an Andean ceremony on Lake Titicaca.

What the day is like on the ground

Expect sun, no shade and cold the minute the sun drops. Sacsayhuamán sits above 12,000 ft and the esplanade has no roof. Bring a hat with a brim, sunscreen, a liter of water, a warm layer for 4 p.m. and cash for food and bathrooms. The streets between the plaza and Sacsayhuamán close to traffic, so walk up early, with your phone in a front pocket and your passport in the hotel safe. Our Cusco altitude guide covers what a long day in the sun at this height does to you, and our guide to the best time to visit Peru puts June against the rest of the dry season.

Sources

• Infobae, Inti Raymi 2026 tickets sold out: seats, categories, prices and schedule (June 17, 2026)
• Infobae, EMUFEC warning on fake tickets, Teleticket as the only channel (May 29, 2025)
• Andina, what Inti Raymi is, its history and its three stages
• El Peruano, Inti Raymi 2026, performed without interruption since 1944
• Inti Raymi, Wikipedia (Pachacuti, 1535, 1944 reconstruction, Law 27431)