January 2021 events calendar for Los Angeles

Insomniac—who’s behind EDC, HARD Summer and the Wonderland series—is transporting the carnival-like Day-Glo atmosphere of its music fests to Arcadia’s Santa Anita park for an after-dark drive-thru this January. Electric Mile is constructing seven themed areas inspired by the promoter’s various fests, with a promise of five million lights—plus lasers, disco balls, light-up mushrooms and a warehouse rave—along an hour-long route, all experienced from your car. And as you might expect, it’ll all be set to an EDM soundtrack curated by festival founder Pasquale Rotella. Timed tickets are priced per car (up to eight people), and the cost varies by day; early evenings and school nights tend to be cheaper ($70 to $80), while Friday nights and all-day Saturday costs $100. Initial reports made it sound like the wait to get into the drive-thru was a bit slow for non-VIP ticket holders, so Insomniac announced that it would lower Electric Mile’s daily capacity moving forward.

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned, but this time for a drive-in at Santa Monica Airport. Rooftop Cinema Club has come back to town with screenings into 2021. Look out for kid-friendly Wednesday matinees that start at only $5 per car, otherwise screenings on most other days start at $32 for two people. If you’re trying to figure out where exactly at the airport it’ll be held, plug Airport Interim Open Space into your map app of choice.

Some spots have flipped their parking lots into drive-thrus or drive-ins. But in the case of Six Flags, they’re converting the actual Valencia theme park into one. This year, Magic Mountain’s annual after-hours event Holiday in the Park will allow guests to drive their cars along the park’s pathways and past illuminated displays. Expect dancing lights set to holiday tunes, 30-foot-tall ornaments, fake snow, appearances from Santa and Mrs. Claus, and a car show from West Coast Customs. Tickets cost $20 to $25 per person, depending on the night, though oddly there’s a two-person minimum—so sorry solo drivers. Try to nab an early-evening weekday ticket to avoid bumper-to-bumper traffic the whole way.

One of L.A.'s most colorful selfie pop-ups returned as a 50,000-square-foot drive-thru designed for the socially distant era—and now its run is getting extended for even more whimsical, picture-perfect moments. Angelenos swooned over the first two installments of the Happy Place—so much that the colorful maze of installations sold out both times—and after a world tour, it made its way back to L.A. in fall of 2020. Now it's giving us even more photo-ready drive-through stations because Happy Place-The Drive Thru is sticking around until January 18. The Happy Place team just announced the additional dates, when you can head to the Westfield Century City's parking deck and weave you through 18 whimsical installations—including a massive piano you'll drive over, a simulation of a roadtrip through California, and of course a reprise of the original Happy Place's stunning flower room.  And, since we've just entered a new year, they're offering a limited number of tickets at a discounted rate of $20.21 with code HAPPY2021. How's that for kicking off 2021? Find more details about the event here.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by H A P P Y P L A C E (@wearehappyplace)

This Stranger Things-themed experience will bring the Netflix series to life with an hourlong adventure that transports visitors to Hawkins and the Starcourt Mall circa 1985. And as the name implies, you’ll be able to take it all in from the safety of your own car. Hatched by the UK’s wildly creative Secret Cinema, the experience will take groups of 24 cars at a time through “a world of bitchin’ tunes, mullets and monster hunts,” including sets complete with actors in costume and special effects. You’ll drive through the Starcourt Mall, Russian labs and the Upside Down and stop for extended periods of time at each to see different scenes play out. Read our full review of Stranger Things: The Drive-Into Experience.

Summertime drive-in series Electric Dusk and the Vista’s late-night Secret Movie Club are teaming up for some screenings in Glendale, held atop the old Sears parking garage. Most films are shown as double featurs, and you can purchase tickets to just one movie or both each night; either way, you’ll pay a flat car fee plus a per-person charge. And like other drive-in screenings, cars will be spaced six feet apart and you’ll need to remain inside of it during the film.

Catch drive-in screenings outside of a 91-year-old theater with the Hollywood Hills as your backdrop during this new series. The American Legion Hollywood Post 43 will host up 30 cars a night, seven days a week during the veterans organization’s new drive-in (with films digitally projected onto a 38-foot screen and transmitted via your car radio). Each reservation includes popcorn, soda and candy, and you can also choose to donate to the theater so that it can add a 35mm projector to its new outdoor setup.

Though you can’t step foot inside of the museum, the California African American Museum is still honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. with a virtual celebration this year. The program on January 18 kicks off with a morning musical performance from the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, followed by discussions about King’s speech in support of the Memphis sanitation workers and the historical and continuing struggles of the labor movement. The afternoon closes with author Alice Faye Duncan reading excerpts from her children’s book, Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968, and a haiku workshop.

LACMA was all set to unveil its Yoshitomo Nara exhibition last April but then, well, you know. While you still can’t step inside of it, you can hear from the artist himself during this series of Zoom Q&As with Nara and Yeewan Koon, Chair of the Department of Art History at the University of Hong Kong. Talk topics include the origin of the artist’s popular big-headed girl; kawaii and the “Superflat” movement; and art after Fukushima.

In the name of keeping Angelenos sane—and who couldn’t use some sanity right now?—the Hammer Museum holds free weekly drop-in sessions on mindful awareness, which is defined as “the moment-by-moment process of actively and openly observing one’s physical, mental and emotional experiences.” The 30-minute sessions were previously held on-site at the Hammer, but they’ve moved online for the forseeable future. If you can’t make it to each Zoom meeting on Thursdays at 12:30pm, you can listen to the archives. Sessions are led by instructors from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. Think of them as your experts in stress reduction and overall health improvement.