The best things to do in Los Angeles this week

Pasadena’s underrated collection of museums and performance spaces open up their doors for free at this biannual arts and culture open house. Take advantage of the free shuttle buses to travel between local institutions such as the USC Pacific Asia Museum, ArtCenter, Pasadena Playhouse, Gamble House, Pasadena Museum of History and more, many of which will be offering special arts programming and live performances—including a puppet show by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater at Pasadena City Hall. And, of course, no arts fest would be complete without food trucks, which often include pop-ups from local bricks-and-mortar businesses.

Paramore singer Hayley Williams knew that selling out her Wiltern shows was misery business for fans, so she's offering Angelenos two more chances to see her perform live in October at the Hollywood Bowl. “The Hayley Williams Show” promises to be a greatest hits romp through her catalog, from her recent solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, to other solo projects and a few surprises. 

To celebrate a decade since their groundbreaking L.A.-based HBO series premiered, creator Issa Rae and showrunner Prentice Penny are launching a 13-city Insecure anniversary live tour alongside their new rewatch podcast, Blocc Party. The tour will fittingly conclude its run in Inglewood on October 8 at the YouTube Theater with candid behind-the-scenes conversations, untold stories and (potential) special appearances from fellow cast members Yvonne Orji, Jay Ellis and Natasha Rothwell.

Held over two weekends (Oct 10–11, 17–18), this Oktoberfest celebration combines Santa Anita’s famous horse races with the best of the Bavarian fall festival, including stein-holding and costume contests, a corn hole competition, keg rolling, pretzels—and beer of course. Each general admission ticket includes a mini tasting stein and eight three-ounce beer tastings, as well as a $5 betting voucher, a tip sheet and access to open grandstand seating at the race track. A pricier VIP group ticket (with a three-person minimum) secures you picnic table seating and a $20 food voucher. 

It’s hard to imagine a lovelier setting than the Huntington’s rose garden in bloom. Add in live music provided by the Pasadena Conservatory of Music, and there’s no better place to spend a Monday afternoon. Wander among the blooms while solo and duo performers share their strings skills on violin, cello and guitar. Admission is included with your $29 Huntington ticket.

The Bungalow at the oceanfront Fairmont Miramar Hotel is pairing Bavarian fun and beachy vibes at a weekend-long Oktoberfest celebration. Raise a stein of Paulaner or Hefeweizen beer by the sea, and feast on bratwurst, pretzels, käsespätzle, apple strudel and more. Also on offer: tunes from Festmeister Hans und Die Sauerkrauts, plus German pop music, comedy, classic folk games, and men and women’s stein-holding contests. Last year, adult entry was $20, but this year it’s free to get in.

The term CicLAvia stems from a similar Spanish word for “bike way,” and in L.A. it’s become a shorthand for the temporary, festival-like closing of L.A.’s streets. The event welcomes bikes, tricycles, skateboards, strollers and basically anything else without an engine to ride a rotating cast of car-free routes. This time around, the route includes 6.5 miles of open streets in Downtown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Arts District, Boyle Heights and Echo Park. Expect music, street performances and food trucks, as well as general whimsy and shenanigans along the way. Shop owners and restaurants along the CicLAvia route also tend to host specials. It goes without saying that you should bike or take the Metro to your desired spot along the route.

Every October, Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group hosts a chilling series of vignettes that’s been named one of Yelp’s top 10 scariest haunts in the country. Armed with a shoddy flashlight to illuminate their path, guests navigate a labyrinth of terror both before and after watching a series of shocking scenes (over the course of roughly 40 minutes) that will unsettle even the most stoic of horror fans. The haunted house-slash-theater experience has been scaring audiences for over 20 years in its North Hollywood theater, and this year’s event is being touted as “bigger and badder than ever.”

On select Saturday afternoons in the summer, the historic Mount Wilson Observatory screens a decades-spanning lineup of sci-fi and astronomy-inspired shorts and feature-length films. Unlike the San Gabriel Mountains site’s concert series and stargazing sessions, Matinees on the Mountain doesn’t take place inside the dome of the 100-inch telescope. Instead, screenings take place inside the 256-seat auditorium inside the astronomical museum, the same venue used for the site’s Talks & Telescopes lectures.

South Coast Botanic Garden’s adorable dog-walking hours jump from a once-a-month treat to an every-weekend affair just during the month of October at Dogtoberfest. In addition to dog-friendly walking paths, the garden throws a bunch of Oktoberfest-style activities into the mix. For the humans, you’ll find beer stations along a Pup Crawl throughout the garden, as well as on the main lawn. That’s where you’ll find the bulk of the programming, too, including live music from Die Sauerkrauts, plus stein-holding, pretzel-tossing and yodeling contests. For the pups, expect training obstacles along the garden pathway and races on the lawn. As for the beer aspect, a VIP ticket gets you a flight of beer (or root beer) samples, a full-size beer, a pretzel necklace and a few other small perks. New this year is the dog VIP ticket, which comes with a free “dog beer” tasting (who knew that existed?), a treat, a photo of your pet and access to the VIP Top Dog Zone, complete with splash pads and doggie pools.

Stroll through a mile-long trail filled with all things pumpkins, including an illuminated forest of jack-o’-lanterns, during Descanso Gardens’ annual Carved. For four weeks this fall, the family-friendly event will line a loop of the botanical garden with thousands of professionally carved pumpkins. For the 2026 edition, the popular neon-hued Rhizome light sculpture is moving into the Oak Grove, and the labyrinth will feature immersive new sculptures. Also new this year is a pricey “anytime” ticket you can use on any day of the run—though we recommend picking a day and time and saving $30.

It feels like Oktoberfest all year round at Silver Lake’s long-running Red Lion Tavern, but it’s especially festive in the fall, when it celebrates the Bavarian tradition all the way through mid-November. Order the Oktoberfest platter—an epic array of pretzels, brats, schnitzel and sides—alongside a four-liter boot of beer. You’ll also find live music and stein-holding contests on select nights. Check the bar’s Instagram for programming updates.

It’s been almost a decade since 24K Magic, but its foot-tapping facsimile of ’70s funk, ’80s disco-pop and ’90s R&B still hasn’t lost its sheen, and we’re betting that Mars’s party tunes will still have enough funk to get you uptown—or to SoFi Stadium, where Mars is stopping for four nights in October on his Romantic Tour. The outing marks the singer’s first global headline tour since his 24K Magic World Tour (though L.A. was treated to a couple of shows in summer 2024 when he christened Intuit Dome as its first performer). Opening the shows will be Raye and Mars’s Silk Sonic collaborator, Anderson .Paak, who’ll perform as DJ Pee .Wee. 

Walk in James Dean’s footsteps as the Griffith Observatory hosts two special screenings of Rebel Without a Cause—right where key scenes from the movie were filmed. The observatory hosted two sold-out screenings of the film last year in honor of its 70th anniversary, so it’s bringing the popular event back this October. Watch it in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon theater, snap pictures at themed photo ops, and enjoy free parking and after-hours access to the observatory, which is typically closed on Mondays.

Perhaps the Los Angeles area’s most iconic flea market, this event around the exterior of the Rose Bowl is staggeringly colossal? The sheer size and scale of this flea market means that it encompasses multitudes: new and old, hand-crafted and salvaged, the cheap and the costly. On the second Sunday of each month, an odd mix of vendors populates the loop around the stadium: for every eye-catching artwork, there’s a ratty $5 T-shirt, and for each elegant craft there’s a competing “as seen on TV” demo. But you may have more luck in the rows and rows of old furniture, albums and vintage clothes and accessories that fill the adjacent parking lot.

Catch Curtis Cook, Brandie Posey, Rick Wood and John Michael Bond host this free comedy show on Wednesday nights at Hollywood’s Y2K-inspired Zero Lounge. The event coincides with the bar’s daily 7-to-10pm happy hour, so hang out for a bit and garnish your comedy with a cocktail or mocktail.

Coachella organizer Goldenvoice has made a couple of autumn returns to the Empire Polo Club for nostalgic, genre-focused fests—first with classic rock and more recently ’80s metal. Now it’s time for some dance greats to gather in the desert, though this two-day, single-stage event balances some fresh talent with its EDM vets. Saturday’s lineup includes Calvin Harris, Under Construction (the live collab between Fisher and Chris Lake), Peggy Gou back-to-back with Four Tet, and Seth Troxler back-to-back with Ben Sterling; Sunday features Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex, Dom Dolla back-to-back with Kettama, the Blessed Madonna and DJ Harvey; and Floating Points will host a special sound installation all weekend long.

Artist and composer Emmit Fenn turns an Arts District soundstage into a multisensory music experience during this limited-run performance. The phone-free, roughly two-hour event progresses across three environments: a snowy field where you can enjoy tea, the main music space where synchronized lights appear to float atop a darkened pool of water and a post-show gallery with behind-the-scenes imagery.

The inimitable artist, musician and activist—and John Lennon’s other half—is the subject of the Broad’s highly anticipated upcoming show, Ono’s first-ever solo museum exhibition in Southern California. Organized in collaboration with the Tate Modern in London, “Music of the Mind” will allow visitors to directly interact with works from the artist’s seven-decade long career. In conjunction with the show, the museum will transform the olive trees on the outdoor East West Bank Plaza into Wish Trees for Los Angeles, where visitors can tie their own wishes on the branches. Many of the works invite audience engagement, in fact, all working toward a common goal of peace and connection. Also on display will be Acorn Event (1968) and Bed Peace (1969) anti-war works of activism Ono and Lennon worked on together. Tickets for the special exhibition are available at thebroad.org.

What could be a better fit for Halloween than spooky films screened in a cemetery? Following its 25th season, Cinespia will return to Hollywood Forever Cemetery this October for a 50th-anniversary screening of Carrie and Jennifer’s Body, leading up to John Carpenter’s The Thing on Halloween night itself. Enjoy spirited DJ sets before and after the movie, and be sure to strike a pose in the free themed photo booth each night.

The Outsiders graduates from required reading to a Tony–winning musical, which got its start in San Diego before taking Broadway by storm (read Time Out theater critic Adam Feldman’s full review here). Now the production is stopping at the Hollywood Pantages as part of its national tour, and settling the decades-old feud between Greasers and Socs.

Sure, it doesn’t look so glamorous now, but give it a few years, a billion or so dollars and some steady rain, and the L.A. River will be a point of civic pride for Angelenos. Do your part in the meantime at the Friends of the Los Angeles River’s 36th annual cleanup, which is again taking place over two weekends this year. Rather than focusing on one spot, the events will tackle multiple locations on October 3 and 10: the Willow Street Bridge in Long Beach, Steelhead Park in Elysian Valley, the Sepulveda Basin in the Valley, and Compton Creek just steps from the Metro A Line. Volunteering is free, but you need to register online ahead of time—a couple of sessions are already at capacity.

L.A.’s star-studded lecture series returns—both virtually and in person—with a lineup of writers, artists, performers, scientists and business leaders who will graciously blow your mind. For both online and IRL events, you’ll often have the option of purchasing a signed copy of the speaker’s book, as well. Highlights from the upcoming months include evenings with Michael Douglas (Oct 10), David Byrne (Oct 13), Andy Serkis (Nov 6) and Andy Richter (Nov 19).

One of L.A.’s best free live-music offerings, Jazz at LACMA has featured legit legends over its 35-year run at the museum. Seating for the program is available in the museum’s plaza on a first-come, first-served basis, though you’re welcome to picnic on the grass, too (you won’t really be able to see the show, but you’ll still hear it). You’ll find the series on Friday evenings in LACMA’s welcome plaza (just behind Urban Light) throughout the summer and into the fall. We’re betting it’ll be even more popular than usual this year, with the new David Geffen Galleries in the background.

Scope out B-movie classics and under-the-radar premieres at Beyond Fest. Held in partnership with American Cinematheque (which the fest raises funds for), it includes two weeks of screenings and Q&As with actors and filmmakers. Highlights from this year’s lineup include a day-long celebration of Robert Eggers’s work, the world premiere of V/H/S/MIXTAPE, and M. Night Shyamalan and Bruce Dern retrospectives. You’ll find the films spread across town at the Cinematheque’s three venues: the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, Los Feliz 3 and Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, which is reopening after technical upgrades just in time for the festival.

Right in time for Halloween season, the Academy Museum seeks to answer the question “Why do horror films matter so deeply to so many?” in this immersive look at the genre whose cultural cachet is always increasing. Knowingly employing horror tropes and exploring the lasting appeal of scary movies, the show will be divided into six subcategories of horror—gothic, psychological, science, slasher, religion and ghosts. Expect re-creations of iconic settings where visitors will encounter creatures, monsters and objects from their favorite horror flicks and, in typical Academy fashion, a behind-the-scenes look at the storytelling and production processes of films from the original Frankenstein to The Shining to Get Out.

Home of the Los Angeles County Fair, the Fairplex turns into a German wonderland for Oktoberfest every Friday and Saturday from October 2 to 17, complete with Bavarian music, beer, games and plenty of chicken dancing. Sink your teeth into bratwurst, knockwurst, pretzels and potato pancakes while knocking back authentic German suds at this 21-plus event with DJs, oompah outfits, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, Selena and Journey cover bands. 

He’s why birds suddenly appear—oops, wrong Carpenter. This one may be why birds fall dead from the sky, as L.A. will see when the Academy Museum’s John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness series opens September 26, bringing the horror maestro’s pulsing synth scores, practical monsters and beautifully bleak worldview to the big screen through October 25. The retrospective includes The Thing, Halloween, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, Christine, The Fog and Prince of Darkness in 35mm, among others. And Carpenter himself will make an appearance on four nights! Basically, consider this your excuse to spend a month being gloriously creeped out at the movies.

Following the wildly successful first edition of her Daisy Chain Fields music festival, Olivia Rodrigo is stepping into the spotlight at the Grammy Museum, where a new two-part exhibition is devoted to the pop star. Running through February 22, 2027, “Olivia Rodrigo: the cure unraveled” features an exclusive look at the handcrafted hospital sets, costumes, props, stop-motion animatronics and original artwork from the singer’s music video for single “the cure.” Meanwhile, “note by note,” the second installment, which opens September 25, offers a journey through the prolific singer’s career so far, with outfits and accessories spanning all three of her album cycles and two world tours, plus items fresh from the Daisy Chain Fields grounds.

Go pumpkin picking in the pines as a Halloween-themed month of activities hits this perennially Christmas Lake Arrowhead amusement park. Each weekend in October, SkyPark at Santa’s Village hosts its Pumpkins in the Pines activities, with pumpkins and hay bales covering the grounds of the park.

Though the park is open select days during the week, the Hallowen activities are limited to Saturdays and Sundays. That’s when you’ll find pumpkin picking and painting, photo ops, a Sleepy Hollow puppet show, a Monster Mash light show, costume contests and trick-or-treating.

Reservations aren’t required, but you can secure a better rate by buying tickets in advance. Also, just a heads-up that some activities cost a few bucks extra.

This Highland Park biergarten is hosting its second annual Oktoberfest shindig, transforming the space into a Bavarian beer hall. The sister to Wirtshaus and Rasselbock already serves standout sausages and schnitzel year-round (including veggie options), but every Friday and Saturday through Halloween, you can also enjoy food and drink specials, live music, stein-holding contests and more.

Its past installments have found attendees stealthing their way through a Victorian home and embarking on a Blade Runner-esque bounty hunt. And now this celebrated immersive horror theater event is returning to its roots at the Beckett Manion in West Adams for its longest and most interactive play yet.

Delusion, an interactive seasonal event that combines elements of immersive theater with a more story-based approach to a walk-through haunted house, will host visitors on select nights from September 17 through Halloween till November 8. This year’s theme, “Den of the Mosquito,” is set in a New Orleans brothel in the 1920s, with a cast of mobsters, monsters and vampire prostitutes. You’ll play an agent with a secret organization, and the event promises more interactivity and split paths than ever, perfect for those who want to be part of the story.

Walk across the grounds of the scenic King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas as the Santa Monica Mountains hideaway is illuminated with thousands of hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns. (Fun fact: Calabasas has a pumpkin-filled history—it’s actually named after the Spanish word for the gourd: “calabaza”.) Night of the Jack returns with a reimagined mile-long trail this year, plus food trucks and a “Spookeasy,” too. 

For 2026, the family-friendly event is also introducing Jack’s Carnival, with around a dozen kid-friendly rides and games, plus new lantern art, photo ops, projection mapping and a new display in the illuminated field. 

Timed tickets are required each night. As is the case with all similar experiences, they’re not cheap and fluctuate ($34.50–$57) depending on the day of the week and time of night. The cheapest tickets are for the 6pm “Almost Dark” session, where you embark on the trail as it flickers to life during golden hour. The most expensive are the “anytime” tickets, which let you arrive at any point during the night—those cost up to $83. Expect to spend an hour to an hour and a half at the experience, though that could double on weekends (and closer to Halloween) when the entry crowds and food truck lines tick up.

Head to the mountains for the annual Oktoberfest at Big Bear Lake, where you’ll be able to clink steins every weekend from September to early November. Beer will be flowing, knockwursts will be cooked up, and dirndls will be worn. The entertainment lineup includes numerous bands—many straight from Germany—and other performances, and one lucky damsel will be named the Oktoberfest Queen when she wins the stein-carrying contest. Others can test their skills with free log-sawing, stein-holding and chugging competitions.

Every weekend through October 24, this Venice gastropub is throwing a Bavarian celebration with lederhosen and finger-licking fare. Dive into a savory rattlesnake and rabbit hot link topped with onions and peppers, choose from a selection of German and Belgian beers on draft, and enjoy yodeling and live German music. The best part? Each ticket (with noon or 5pm start times on Saturdays and 2pm start times on Sundays) includes a Wurstküche beer stein, with the first fill-up included. Entry isn’t cheap ($72 and up), but the seatings regularly sell out.

The only thing better than a haunted attraction is a haunted attraction on a giant boat—which has its own haunted history. You’ll find all the usual horrors here—think fog, mazes and countless monsters roaming around. What sets Dark Harbor apart is its use of its surroundings; the dark, cramped confines of the Queen Mary are already pretty spooky even without monsters—just be prepared to climb a lot of skinny staircases. For its 13th anniversary, the event dives further into the ocean liner’s lore with reimagined mazes set both on shore and in the ship’s swimming pool and corridors. New this year is the “Shipwrecked: Brace for Impact” maze, as well as carnival rides Alien Abduction and blacklight bumper cars. When you tire of the terror, sip spirits at secret speakeasies or catch spooky live entertainment.

Face your fears and head to the Natural History Museum’s Spider Pavilion, where you can observe several hundred orbweaver spiders in a living exhibit just outside of the museum. Scared the spiders might be hard to spot in the wild? Fret not. In previous iterations, we’ve spotted ones about the size of an adult’s palm. Gulp. (But don’t worry: The scariest ones—from tarantulas to wolf spiders—are in enclosed habitats.) 

Far from those kid-friendly rides through a pumpkin patch, this hayride unleashes all sorts of demons and bogeys on Griffith Park, which is transformed into the mid-’80s fictitious town of Midnight Falls. The Griffith Park tradition, which has been running for 18 years now, centers on a relatively lengthy hayride. The premise: A witch has summoned spirits of the underworld who’ve hidden themselves among Halloween decorations in the town’s foothills. This year’s event introduces a new, Sunset Strip–themed maze, “Fallen Angel,” and sees the return of Elvira’s Trick or Treat Mayhem, the Scary-Go-Round, Hellbilly Halloween and axe-throwing. A welcome addition this year: alcohol, served at themed bars throughout the event.

This Denver-originated Halloween attraction returns to SoCal with over 10,000 thousand hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns lining a mile-long pathway at the beautiful South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes. This year’s event adds a whimsical circus scene, a Día de los Muertos tribute and an under-the-sea display. Pumpkin light shows, bounce pads, inflatables and festive food complete the family-friendly experience.

Encounter free-roaming monsters, stage shows and 10 terrifying mazes—this year’s new additions are “Inked,” which brings 1930s cartoon characters to life, and the excavation-themed “Unearthed”—as well as a menu of eerie eats and sinister sweets, five scare zones and the theme park’s thrill rides during Knott’s Scary Farm, SoCal’s original and longest-running Halloween theme park event. Also new this year are two shows: Voodoo: Bayou's Edge and Occultum, featuring magicians from the legendary Magic Castle.

“Somehow it’s a happier ending than I thought it would be—it felt so bleak,” Tacita Dean says of crafting this tribute to the then-fading format of analog film back in 2011. But here in the year of The Odyssey, Dean’s commission for the Tate Modern—restaged here at the Marciano Art Foundation’s cavernous theater gallery—feels like a triumphant touting of film’s resurgence: An 11-minute-long collage (all of the cutouts were achieved in camera) plays out on a vertically-oriented reel of 35mm film. The show coincides with Pierre Leguillon’s selection of old advertisements that feature prominent artists promoting commercial brands.

Admire suspended sheets of textiles—including the metallic ones that would be incorporated into the curtains at the new David Geffen Galleries—along with colorful sketches and a recreation of Tokyo store NUNO at LACMA’s showcase of pioneering textile designer Reiko Sudō.

Pitched as a a small-scale experience with global-scale performers, this festival series sets up at a handful of waterfront locations, including Lake Tahoe, Napa and—closest to L.A.—Montecito (at least that’s how it’s billed, though it’s actually in Carpinteria), where you’ll find the Chainsmokers, Kygo, T-Pain, Zedd, the All-American Rejects and Loud Luxury at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club.

See the marionette theater’s family-friendly take on Halloween during the two-month return of its Hallowe’en Spooktacular—a refurbished production of its long-running “boo-sical revue” where you can see over 100 silly and spooky puppets take the stage. A newer addition is the Día de los Muertos sequence that pays tribute to the holiday. Once October arrives, each show will include a costume parade, so dressing up is encouraged.

Five photographers who pushed their medium in new directions in the second half of the 20th century present their unique takes on the city in this Getty Center show. Influenced by techniques including social documentary practices, staged scenes and fashion, the photographs of Laura Aguilar, Reynaldo Rivera, George Rodriguez, Patssi Valdez and Ricardo Valverde expanded Chicano and Chicana representation in Los Angeles.

Well, well, well, what have we here? The Nightmare Before Christmas’s bug-stuffed sack is once again taking over the Halloween duties at Disneyland Resort for Oogie Boogie Bash, an after-hours, specially ticketed seasonal event at Disney California Adventure Park on select nights from mid-August through October. You’ll find trick-or-treating trails, kid-friendly shows, the maze-like Villains Grove and, new this year, Madame Leota's Swinging Wake—A Haunted Mansion Street Party. And the perks of the after-hours event aren’t just Halloween-y: You’ll be able to venture through and hop on rides in most areas of the park (with considerably shorter wait times), including at Avengers Campus (the Guardians of the Galaxy ride will flip to its Monsters After Dark edition). The catch: Tickets always sell out quickly—though you can still enjoy the Halloween decor, a special fireworks show and the Nightmare Before Christmas takeover of Haunted Mansion at the resort.

For more than 50 years, this venue has drawn theater aficionados to its storied, open-air stage for engaging productions in a magical setting. The 299-seat amphitheater in Topanga Canyon hosts audiences of all ages for plays from a wide range of genres, from Shakespearean classics to folk tales. This season, catch William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as a stage version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Noël Coward’s Waiting in the Wings and The People of Pompeii, a new dark comedy Bernardo Cubría wrote in the aftermath of the 2025 wildfires.

Billing itself as “Orange County’s biggest party since 1977,” the Old World Oktoberfest promises enough beers, brats and bands to make you feel like you’re in Munich—albeit with better ocean views. Every Wednesday through Sunday between September 12 and November 8, this re-created Bavarian village will offer a sausage-filled menu, oompah and German bands, a biergarten, dancing and more. While Old World’s Oktoberfest is 21-plus with a cover charge on Friday and Saturday evenings, it’s open to families and revelers of all ages on Saturday afternoons and other nights. (Entry is free on Wednesday and Thursday nights, as well as Saturday afternoons, just book ahead online.)

Held in the so-called Alps of Southern California, Lake Arrowhead’s all-ages Oktoberfest runs every weekend from September 19 to October 25 this year, hosting live German American oompah bands, “choke the chicken” (“like stein-holding but more fun”), dance contests, children’s games and a daily sausage toss. Although there’s no entry fee, attendees are advised to book picnic tables ($150 on Saturdays for up to eight people) or pub tables (four-seaters $75 and two-seaters $35 on Saturdays) to secure seats closer to the stage. On Sunday, tables are first-come, first-served. This year, the event is again being held in the picturesque Waterfront Park.

Just in time for silver screen starlet Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday, the Academy Museum is presenting a centennial celebration dedicated to the woman and her work, offering “unique insight into her agency in becoming a Hollywood icon.” In addition to posters, portraits, letters and rarely seen personal items, highlights from the exhibition include two screen-worn costumes from Some Like It Hot and the rarely exhibited famous pink dress Monroe wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Borrowed from Woody Guthrie’s egalitarian folk anthem, the title of this exhibition at the Huntington offers a pretty literal teaser of what you can expect to see: lots of relics tied to land, specifically American land. But that lens provides an insightful and profound perspective on 250 years of ambition, achievement, struggle, exclusion and belonging in the United States. There are some truly remarkable documents on display here—including Guthrie’s original lyrics sheet for “This Land is Your Land,” paired with one of his acoustic guitars with a faded proclamation that “this machine kills fascists” scratched into the back. But the most humbling piece on display just might be the one that first greets you: the cross section of an oak tree that stood on the grounds of the Huntington for 250 years.

The Skirball’s Jack Kirby exhibition may be over, but the museum has followed it up with this expansive look at how comics came to dominate pop culture. Many of the creators of the medium were immigrants and outsiders—including Jewish Americans—who poured their experiences with struggle, aspiration and reinvention into their work. From the Great Depression through Y2K, comics reflected the national moment and actually helped shape American identity. On display, you’ll find original artwork and artifacts relating to beloved comic book characters, from Superman and Black Panther to Little Lulu and Archie.

This L.A.-centric exhibition looks at the Declaration of Independence’s promise of life, liberty and happiness, and how that promise has been fulfilled—or not—throughout the city’s development. Told via the stories of diverse Angelenos alongside historical and contemporary objects, media and art, the show “invites you to step into a conversation that has been shaping Los Angeles for over two hundred years.” 

This show aims to give Black queer culture in California—particularly in Los Angeles—the credit it’s due as a part of the decades-long fight for LGBTQ+ rights and recognition. Through historical materials, photographs, film and vintage newspapers, the exhibition recovers a history that’s been largely excluded from the record, introducing visitors to sites, protagonists and allies who played a role in the fight for democracy and free expression. 

It’s a very Fast & Furious kind of year in L.A., between Universal Studio’s roller coaster and this 25th anniversary exhibition of the movie franchise. The Petersen Automotive Museum is showcasing movie vehicles, stunt cars and production prototypes in its second-floor galleries, including the 1993 Toyota Supra “Stunt #3” and 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse driven by Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) in the original film, Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) 1968 Dodge Charger R/T and 1993 Mazda RX-7, Suki’s (Devon Aoki) 2001 Honda S2000 and more.

The reopened Getty Villa will descend into the underworld with this exhibition, which looks at the ritual spells and religious writings ancient Egyptians employed to garner favor with Re and Osiris in the afterlife. See the Getty’s collection of rare Book of the Dead rare hieroglyphics-adorned and illustrated manuscripts, dating back to around 1000 BCE, which were last displayed in 2023. The show should dovetail nicely with the museum’s “Sculpted Portraits From Ancient Egypt,” which runs through January 2027.

Do you get a little thrill every time you go to the Beverly Hills Hotel? You have architect Paul R. Williams to thank, even if you might not know the name. This exhibition at the USC Fisher Museum of Art aims to fix that. “Paul R. Williams: An Architect Considered” specifically spotlights the visionary architect’s multifamily housing projects through original drawings, photographs and plans, juxtaposed with new commissions by contemporary artists and architects. The message is clear: Williams didn’t just shape Los Angeles; he imagined a more livable version of it, one gorgeous building at a time. Complementary Williams exhibitions at LACMA and the Getty Center will open later in the year.