Free events in LA: The best free things to do in the city

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 begins the day after Thanksgiving and typically features more than 400 animated figures. For the 2020 edition, there won’t be a “switch on” ceremony and visitors (aside from hotel guests and restaurant patrons) will not be allowed to stroll the main walkway.

Step inside an oversized, crystalline Christmas ornament and a tree made of lights during the return of this Downtown installation. Sparkle DTLA is setting up shop at the Bloc through the end of December, and every night you can expect its displays to dance to music on the hour (5–9pm).

Like an Angelyne billboard on Sunset Boulevard, the Hollywood Christmas Parade is an essential part of L.A. kitsch. The nearly nine-decade–old parade features floats, balloons, bands, equestrians and celebrities as they ride across Hollywood. Though there’s no parade for 2020, you can watch an “greatest moments” special on the CW on December 4 at 8pm.

While Santa may still be working with his elves to load up his sleigh, you can relax and enjoy a pre-Christmas Eve celebration from the Music Center. Though you’d normally be able to drop in to see the three-hour show, this year it’ll be streaming and broadcast only. But you’ll still be able to catch performances from 22 local artists, filmed on location at the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Jerry Moss Plaza and at sites around the county. You can watch starting at 3pm on Christmas Eve on PBS SoCal and streaming, as well.

Peruse gifts for sale from Barnsdall’s students and faculty at this free fair, which is being held virtually this year. Expect handcrafted jewelry, ceramics, cards, prints, paintings, drawings and photos all up for sale. The fair kicks off with a Zoom opening on November 15 (3–5pm) and continues through the end of the year.

Celebrate the 19th Amendment’s centennial anniversary with this online exhibition from the Natural History Museum about women’s fight for the right to vote. “Rise Up L.A.” follows the political and social impacts of everyday women involved in the suffrage movement via historical objects like buttons, an interactive 1920 California ballot, sign-making activities and a voter registration drive. The exhibition kicks off on August 18 with an archive of video interviews with L.A. women 65 and older (as well as a streaming discussion), followed by a series of three Zócalo Public Square-presented panels through the end of the year.

Theaters are still darkBut their marquees can still glowPerfect for poems Downtown L.A.’s Ace Hotel has always been creative with the text on its marquee, but the hotel and theater’s latest programming puts the focus squarely on the exterior sign instead of the stage. Through December, 12 poets, songwriters, essayists and visual artists will each have a turn in taking over the 1929 United Artists Theatre building’s marquee with a haiku (if you need a refresher, that’s a three-line poem that starts with five syllables, followed by seven and five again). The lineup includes David Horvitz, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Sophia Le Fraga, Lawrence Weiner, Harry Gamboa Jr., Kim Gordon, Charles Gaines, Carlos Lara and Joyelle McSweeney.

This year marks the first summer that the LA Phil is tackling the programming at the Ford, and, well, let’s just say that 2020 hasn’t gone according to plan. But the show must go on, and so too is the Ford’s season—virtually, at least. This season’s lineup (which was originally supposed to be a centennial celebration for the outdoor venue) includes four main streaming series, all available for free: Ford Digital Festivals, which use performances and discussions to tackle topics like wellness in communities of color and contemporary Native artistry; L.A. Soundscapes, a combo lecture and family-friendly crafting workshop; State of L.A.!, which spotlights up-and-coming figures in the L.A. arts scene with conversations and performances; and From the Ford, an archive of footage from previous shows at the venue that includes TAIKOPROJECT and Lula Washington Dance Theater, among others.

The Hammer Museum’s excellent, ongoing series of biennial exhibitions ups the ante each year with its spotlight on emerging and under-recognized L.A. artists, and we expect the upcoming fifth edition to be no exception. The list of 30 artists includes practitioners across all sorts of mediums, including paintings, sculptures, room-sized installations, ephemeral creations, dance performances, a one-man show and more. And for those Eastsiders scared of venturing too close to the 405, this year the Hammer is partnering with the Huntington Library to present works from all of the artists at the San Marino institution, as well. We’d suggest swinging by the Hammer first; members and visitors to the Hammer will receive free passes to the Huntington to see the rest of the exhibition.

Celebrate Hanukkah with this virtual celebration from the Skirball, which is compiling user-submitted clips of family celebrations as well as performances from Mostly Kosher and Gili Yalo. You can catch the premiere on YouTube on December 13—and you can even pick up latkes from the Skirball for your watch party.

Ever wondered what a show would look like at the Hollywood Bowl with no crowd? You can find out—for free—with the launch of this new video series from the LA Phil. SOUND/STAGE features nine performances filmed at the temporarily shuttered Bowl, as well as some additional footage from the nearby Ford. You’ll find sets from Andra Day, Kamasi Washington and Chicano Batman as well as orchestral suites conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Each performance is paired with essays, interviews and playlists from the likes of Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Pico Iyer, Herbie Hancock, Rian Johnson, Gabriela Ortiz and Alicia Vera, among others. The sets are free to watch (though donations are encouraged) and will stream weekly from September 25 through November 20. And if you’re really missing the Bowl—are we the only ones who got a little weepy watching the preview video?—you can relive past performances with a radio series from KCRW as well as some highlights on KCET and PBS.

CAP UCLA has put together a series of streaming talks centered on art, activism and performance. L.A. Omnibus kicks off in September with a live conversation between multidisciplinary artists Constance Hockaday, Daniel Alexander Jones and Kristina Wong, plus one in October with writer Donna Rifkind and a December talk led by essayist Lynell George.

Author and historian Roger Gastman put together MOCA’s popular 2011 street art retrospective, “Art in the Streets,” and followed it up with a 2018 exhibition in a massive Chinatown warehouse. Now, “Beyond the Streets” is back again—but this time for a virtual art fair. On December 5 and 6, you can tune into the NTWRK app for a series of merch and art drops from the likes of Action Bronson, Felipe Pantone, FUTURA2000, Guerrilla Girls, Kenny Scharf, Mister Cartoon, Pushead, Shantell Martin, Shepard Fairey and more.

See colorful abstract paintings from the pioneering New York School artist, with a specific focus on his works from 1960 to 1980. Hauser & Wirth has put a specific focus on Clark’s works on shaped canvases and his use of a push broom to move paint across them. You’ll need a free, timed reservation to visit the gallery.

The desert-spanning biennial is back, with premieres of site-specific works from a to-be-announced slate of artists. For its third iteration, Desert X will once again stage outdoor installations across 40 miles of the Coachella Valley. Though we don’t know exactly what to expect from the 2021 edition, we do know this: It’ll run from February 6 to April 11, admission will be free and there’ll be an emphasis on visitor safety (with the exhibitions all being outdoors, that seems like a natural fit). For its first two iterations, the pieces have taken all sorts of forms, from billboards to building takeovers, with minimalist works like Sterling Ruby’s fluorescent orange monolith Specter and more immersive inclusions like Doug Aitken’s mirror house.

Each weekend in December, Red Bull is highlighting some of the low-end–loving Latinx musicians from cities around the country with a series of livestreams. For L.A.’s turn on December 18 and 19, you can tune into sets from Kali Uchis, Tomasa del Real, Bianca Maielli and Kinky, among others.