Location T.B.A.

Dedicate three hours of your Saturday to promoting AIDS awareness in the most amusing way possible. Peanuts and Cracker Jack don’t hold a candle to watching burly men in pink wigs play ball for a cause. Even the least sporty of spectactors will get a kick out of the annual Drag Queen World Series; your $15 advanced admission ($20 at the door) earns you an afternoon of watching cross-dressed divas honor America’s favorite pastime while supporting HIV/AIDS support organization, the Life Group LA. Snag tickets for you and your most fun-loving friends, and head to Fairfax High School (7850 Melrose Ave).

See works from 32 photographers projected onto an 80-foot-wide, three-story-high wall during this free outdoor art event. You can catch two screenings on the side of a building from familiar names like Jeff Bridges, Ringo Chiu and Estevan Oriol; find it at 713 North Hill Street in Chinatown.

An unaffiliated, detail-oriented homage to Glasgow’s train wreck of an unauthorized “immersive” Willy Wonka event, this L.A. version is taking the original’s most memorably miserable ingredients, but with the addition of a for-charity assembly of “full weirdo experiential” performers pulled from L.A.’s alternative arts, music and nightlife scenes. You’ll find it at 2346 Porter Street  on the edge of DTLA. Admission is $44 and benefits the National Alliance on Mental Illness. You can find out all about it in our interview with the event’s mysterious organizers.

This chill fest—quite literally compared to the scorching desert outings—brings a few dozen acts to San Luis Obispo. This year’s lineup includes Peach Pit, Thundercat, Noizu and Sidepiece, plus a silent disco, at Dairy Creek Golf Course.

Catch a series of movies in the Valley screened at the locations where they were shot or at a local landmark that fits the film’s theme. My Valley Pass, the area visitors’ guide that runs the event, has lined up a showing of Star Wars in the parking lot of Neiman & Company (6842 Valjean Ave), the former location of Industrial Light & Magic, where the film’s groundbreaking effects were created.

Staged along the convention center side of San Diego’s downtown waterfront, the appropriately named Wonderfront includes sets from Kaytranada, JID, Weezer, Dominic Fike, Beck, Mt. Joy, the Roots, Carly Rae Jepsen, T-Pain, Polo & Pan and more. You’ll find Wonderfront from May 10 to 12 at Embarcadero Marina Park North, Seaport Village and Ruocco Park.

Travel back to the 1920s with the Catalina Island Museum’s annual showcase of silent films. This year’s open-air screenings in Avalon include Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail and Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last.

After years on the Central Coast, the annual event has more recently made a move significantly closer to L.A., at Bakersfield’s Buena Vista Aquatic Recreational Area. Sure, it’s still a bit of a trek, but where else can you find a sustainable, vegetarian festival dedicated to equal parts music, food, art, yoga and wellness? Expect to do some serious soul-searching during this six-day retreat, all while immersing yourself in everything from a speaker series at the Lucent Temple of Consciousness to the old timey Grand Artique trading post. Skrillex, Labrinth, Lane 8, James Blake and M.I.A. top the 2024 lineup.

The wheel-based sports of the X Games feel intrinsically linked with Southern California, and the famous skateboarding and BMX competition even called L.A. its home for much of the aughts. In 2023, it returned to the area after a decade away (ignoring an audience-free edition during the pandemic), and in 2024 the X Games will once again come ot Ventura—with even more sports and music this time around.