December 2024 events calendar for Los Angeles

Every Sunday you can find dozens of food vendors at this market at ROW DTLA, with a mix of much-loved pop-ups and future foodie stars. Look out for this year’s new vendors, including Basket Taco Co, Battambong Barbecue and Taste of the Pacific.

It’s more than just the low clearance: This exhibition at the Petersen explores the custom paint, engraving, upholstery and, of course, the gravity-defying suspension of the lowrider scene. In addition to iconic cars, the exhibit spotlights influential artists in the Chicano lowrider art scene. Even if you have no interest in cars, this colorful showcase of 20-plus lowered cars and bikes is excellent: The candy-colored paint jobs are dazzling, and the craftsmanship of the customizations—many vehicles are on display with their engines and undercarriages visible—is remarkable. You’ll learn a little bit of history here, how the “low and slow” movement is rooted in the postwar Mexican American zoot suit counterculture, but largely this is an excuse to ogle some L.A. automotive icons.

Move through a suite of sci-fi installations that depict a world overcome by rising seas and unchecked capitalism in this exhibition from Josh Kline. The MOCA Grand Avenue show includes a mix of sculpture, photography, moving images and ephemeral materials.

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 (inspired by the first Ciclovías in Bogotá, Colombia) welcomes bikes, tricycles, skateboards, strollers and basically anything else without an engine to ride a rotating cast of car-free routes. You’ll inevitably always find a route each year around Downtown, but past events have taken it anywhere from the harbor to the San Gabriel Valley. 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.

Cirque du Soleil is leaving behind DTLA for the beach with this staging of KOOZA in Santa Monica. The high-flying troupe heads under the big top for its first show next to the Santa Monica Pier since 2014.

Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull, Los Tigres del Norte, Banda MS, Juanes and Carlos Vives top this Latin music fest at Dodger Stadium.

See large ceramic and bronze sculptures at LACMA plus a few more sculptural pieces and collaborative video works at CAAM during this crosstown exhibition of Black feminist artist Simone Leigh.

Broadway travels back in time to the 1950s, by way of the 1980s, in a noisy musical adaptation of the hit 1985 movie.

Say what you will about Metallica’s creative output for the past few decades, the pushing-60 thrash metal stalwarts still know how to fill stadiums with propulsive fits of rage. Even if you haven’t kept up with Hetfield and co. in recent years, expect their live sets to still draw heavily from their first four (or five, depending on where you stand on The Black Album) nearly-perfect albums. For this one-off show at the YouTube Theater, they’ll be supporting their All Within My Hands foundation with the band’s fourth annual Helping Hands Concert & Auction.

We never thought we’d be in the same club as Michelle Obama and Rihanna until Club Quarantine came along. Alright, technically it was a virtual club streamed on Instagram, but that’s no matter: DJ D-Nice’s hours-long sets from his Downtown L.A. home became life-affirming in a real tough year. Now, he’s bringing those positive vibes IRL for this New Year’s Eve show at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.