Things to do in Los Angeles on Friday

Each year, the botanical garden’s nighttime experience masterfully mixes hands-on art installations with atmospheric, luminescent forests, all against a background of uplit trees and shimmery sound effects. This year’s event, which runs from November 17 through January 5, adds in garden’s new model railroad, which will be all lit of for the season. Last year’s edition shuffled some existing installations around and opened up a new glowing area around the rose garden. That’s where you were also able to find HYBYCOZO’s familiar 3-D light sculptures, including the return of their dizzying, spinnable versions. The other big change came on the main lawn, where sculptor Tom Fruin’s kaleidoscopic stained-glass–inspired houses sat flanked by smaller ones that let you smash a button to control the lighting. Elsewhere, Enchanted delightedly looks much like it has in the past: a field of faux tulips ripples with waves of (seemingly more intense this year) twinkling color changes while the mist-filled “Ancient Forest” still beckons visitors with its straight-out-of-E.T. setting. You can still tap the “Rainbow Sycamore” columns, and the event is just as intuitively immersive as ever. And, true to its botanical garden location, most of the installations highlight the natural beauty of Descanso’s flora—with a refinement that sets it apart from most other light shows. Though some of the new additions around the rose garden feel a bit ordinary, Enchanted is otherwise mostly as magical as alwa

The L.A. Zoo is staying open after dark most nights through January during this delightful take on its light-up holiday tradition. Once again, the event’s “Animals Aglow” edition will go all in on oversized animal-shaped lanterns, and—based on last year’s edition—the result is a colorful, charming trail that celebrates the zoo’s natural inhabitants. Plentiful and vibrant, these lantern versions of parrots, bears, butterflies, scorpions and owls come to life with playful movements and animation. Flora shares some of the focus, too, particularly in the golden glow of the field of grazing bison. We’ll see if this carries over to 2024, but last year’s biggest change came to the northern edge of the grounds, where you’ll find the Winter Wildlands area. The too-narrow lights tunnels here have been ditched in favor of a vision-filling polar playground, a gleefully gaudy burst of rainbow lights and icy structures that’ll make sure you don’t leave wishing that there’d been more lights. Though Zoo Lights has eschewed most overtly Christmassy elements outside of this area (a thematically focused upgrade to its original versions, in our opinion), it hasn’t ditched interactive spectacle. You can stomp on a color-changing hopscotch path, relax on illuminated swings, dance inside a shell of kaleidoscopic mirrors and bounce on some glowing seesaws. Buy your timed tickets (available in two sessions nightly) in advance to avoid the worst of the entry lines, and stick to the “value” nights if y

There’s nothing Christmassy nor even wintry about this hour-long Palos Verdes trail, yet its nine stellar installations are the most cosmically mesmerizing of the budding after-dark botanical garden shows that’ve come to blanket L.A. toward the end of the year. Astra Lumina, which debuted in 2022, returns to South Coast Botanic Garden with the same array of celestial-inspired displays. Last year’s edition was basically identical to its debut. But if you loved your first trip to Astra Lumina or haven’t been at all, we still think this is a worthwhile (albeit expensive) event—perhaps better suited for a date night than a large-family affair. While some other year-end light shows seem less focused on moment-to-moment encounters and more on the photogenic snaps you’ll walk away with, Astra Lumina feels truly experiential. You’ll venture through scenes that interpret the arrival and departure of stars in an earthly garden: archways pulsate with light and mist, perforated lanterns spell out a stargazing journey, shooting stars chase up and down a cylindrical frame, shimmery bulbs blanket a forest floor and tranquil lanterns float among the trees. There’s plenty of wonderfully atmospheric fog along much of the trail, including in a shower of lasers so thick that you’ll swear you can touch them. (It’s also worth mentioning how lovely it is to experience a celebration of the night sky from one of the few locations in L.A. where it’s actually dark enough to see plenty of stars.) Astra

Riverside’s stunningly beautiful Mission Inn is bathed in 4.5 million twinkly lights during the annual Festival of Lights. The free six-week-long holiday tradition runs from late November to early January and typically features more than 400 animated figures. Having been voted the “Best Public Lights Display” by USA Today, the festival attracts over 500,000 visitors each year.

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned for another season of screenings to LEVEL in Downtown L.A. Known for excellent film choices and a steady supply of snacks and booze, Rooftop Cinema Club is your snazzy, comfortable and less stressful alternative to other outdoor movie screenings. You don’t even need to bring your own camping chair—Rooftop Cinema Club provides you with your very own comfy lawn chair (with optional blankets for purchase to up the coziness). And instead of listening to the movie over loudspeakers, you’ll get a set of wireless headphones so you never have to miss a word. Find the full schedule on their site, or in our outdoor movie calendar.

This spectacular exhibition from the Icelandic–Danish artist brings a new series of optical installations to MOCA’s Little Tokyo location. Don’t let the reflective, colorful pieces fool you into thinking this is some run-of-the-mill “immersive” exhibit: Olafur Eliasson’s works invite you to admire the everyday miracles of physics that shape how we see the world. The towering, mirror-lined stacks that fill the entrance of “OPEN” bring the outside in, as the warehouse-style Geffen Contemporary’s skylights create infinite spaces and mini worlds out of the sun and sky. The surprisingly analog optics behind them can be truly sublime: Gently moving water has a pair of pieces appear as shimmery landscapes, mirrors turn tubing into floating rings that trail into a black void and a simple array of pendants produce colorful flares against a screen. These aren’t pieces you’re meant to disappear into; instead, they provide a lens for the enviornment around us. You’ll need a timed ticket ($18) to see “Olafur Eliasson: OPEN.” Look for reservations on the first Friday of the month, from 5 to 8pm, for free admission.

From November 18 through mid-February next year, Koreatown’s Boba Bear is transforming into Arcane’s Last Drop Bar to promote the popular Netflix show’s second season. Inside the pop-up, guests will be transported straight into the heart of Zaun, where they can imbibe Arcane-inspired soju cocktails, plus a non-alcoholic option (“Shimmers”) served in a snazzy commemorative glowing glass tube. Expect plenty of games and photo ops in the space, which is decked out in the fictional city’s gritty, steampunk aesthetic, plus build-your-own cocktail classes and cosplay contests. Tickets start at $10 and are open to all ages, and each admission includes a beverage (except for Shimmers).

Cirque du Soleil has left behind DTLA for the beach with this staging of KOOZA next to the Santa Monica Pier. The high-flying troupe heads under the big top for its first show in the oceanfront city since 2014—and its first tented show in L.A. in about five years. If you’re only used to arena or theater productions, there’s a palpable shift in the vibe at these performances thanks to more preshow interaction with the performers and across-the-board closer seating. As for KOOZA itself, it’s a remarkably enjoyable program of gravity-defying balancing acts that fuses a bit of Parisian flair with a mix of Indian music and ’70s funk.

As you might expect, the Getty has a sizable slate of free PST Art exhibitions this fall, and this one is easily the largest and most notable. “Lumen” takes a multi-faith approach to how astronomy and optics impacted art and religion in the Middle Ages—in other words, you’ll find illuminated Hebrew Bibles and a Byzantine chandelier alongside an Islamic astrolabe from the 1200s and a 12th-century manuscript that documented how monks used constellations to tell time. The Getty ties some contemporary pieces into the exhibition, as well, including Fred Eversley’s purple-hued parabolic lens and one of Anish Kapoor’s void-like Vantablack sculptures. These current-day pieces extended outside of the gallery, as well: You’ll find a fuzzy, meditative sculpture from Light and Space artist Helen Pashgian in the museum’s north pavilion, as well as Charles Ross’s array of rainbow-scattering prisms in the entrance hall. Make sure to scope out an eye-popping pair of shows in the west pavilion, too: “Abstracted Light: Experimental Photography,” which features abstract prints from artists like László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, as well as “Sculpting with Light: Contemporary Artists and Holography,” a collection of portraits and landscapes that appear to float within their frames. Both are open through November 24.

This exhibition of 21 soundstage-sized installations has floated its way into L.A. Don’t expect mere bundles of birthday balloons: Instead, these pieces range from room-filling ball pits to reflective LED tunnels to giant grabbable bubbles, all inspired by air in some way. The “museum” part of the name might be a little bit of a stretch (though each photogenic piece is actually credited to a named artist), but the “Let’s Fly” edition of this touring show is a more fun experience than your run-of-the-mill made-for-Instagram attraction: Whether you’re bonking the bouncy “Ginjos,” pushing a charcoal-tipped sphere or getting swept up in a staticky whirlwind of balloons, there are some undeniably entertaining—and yes, very photogenic—hands-on scenes here.