October 2024 events calendar for Los Angeles

For one afternoon, more than a dozen institutions will celebrate their Bunker Hill home with free performances, exhibitions and tours. Most of the action takes place on Grand Avenue between Temple and Sixth Streets.

Highlights of this year’s event on October 19 include a singing workshop and a chance to try instruments at the Colburn School; a sugar skull workshop and building tours at the Los Angeles Central Library; LA Opera recitals at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion; and a Day of the Dead celebration at Grand Park.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery claims to host the largest Day of the Dead celebration in California, and we wouldn’t doubt it: The cemetery grounds are covered with art exhibitions, dance rituals, musical performances, arts and crafts projects and food vendors (and crowds) aplenty. You’ll see altars to the dead created by community artists, and can either watch or participate in the calaca (skeleton) costume contest.

This year’s theme, “Tonas and Nahuales,” celebrates the spiritual guides and guardians central to indigenous Mesoamerican cultures, and it’s sure to be a spectacular display, as always. And after a couple of years of being split into two sessions, the 2024 edition will return to an all-day event, albeit one with staggered admission times (10am–2pm, 2–6pm and 6–11pm). Regardless of when you enter the Día de los Muertos event, you can stick around until the midnight close. The glowing, flickering altars look absolutely incredible after dark—though that’s also when the crowds tend to be the thickest.

With bouyant beats and catchy refrains, Charli XCX teams up with charismatic pop singer Troye Sivan for their coheadlining “Sweat” tour, with special guest Shygirl.

It may have a new name, but Night on Broadway is effectively back after a six-year hiatus (and minus the whole federally-indicted council member part). The new Broadway Night Lights will stage a cultural festival across five blocks of Downtown’s historic theaters and movie palaces on October 12. The Los Angeles Theatre, Palace Theatre and Million Dollar Theatre will open their doors for free (3pm–midnight) to host performances and offer tours. Outside the theaters, there’s a street festival between 3rd and 8th Streets that so far touts two main music stages, circus performances, wrestling matches, a classic car show and a Ferris wheel plus food and art installations.

This is one of the largest Halloween street parties in the world, and there’s really no better place to be on October 31st. Sure, the crowd is huge (like, a half-million people huge) and a bit belligerent, but the amazing display of costumes and general merry-making spirit deem it at least a worthy stop, if not your main destination for the evening. There will be dancing, drinking and many impromptu costume contests. Even if you don’t plan on entering one, it’s best to still come dressed to the nines—no one likes a party pooper in jeans and a T-shirt. Find it along Santa Monica Boulevard, between Doheny Drive and La Cienega Boulevard.

See our guide to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval.

Pedal through Echo Park, Chinatown, DTLA, Little Tokyo, the Arts District and Boyle Heights during this 7.5-mile edition of the bike-friendly, car-free fest.

Former Time Out contributing critic Simon Majumdar is fighting oligodendroglioma, a rare incurable form of brain cancer. Together with fellow Food Network faces Antonia Lofaso (Dama), Mei Lin (Daybird) and Brooke Williamson (Playa Provisions), the globetrotting British American food writer is hosting a one-night-only benefit dinner for Oligo Nation, a nonprofit that funds research into how to treat and potentially cure this rare disease. Held at one of Lofaso’s other restaurants, Venice’s Scopa Italian Roots, Chefs United For a Cure will consist of a four-course family-style meal featuring dishes by all three chefs and a wine pairing, a meet-and-greet with Majumdar, a cocktail reception (with early access for VIP ticketholders) and live auction. 

Stroll through a mile-long trail filled with all things pumpkins, including an illuminated forest of jack-o’-lanterns, during Descanso Gardens’ annual Carved. For three weeks this fall (Oct 4–30), the event lines a loop of the botanical garden with pumpkins in all sorts of forms: as a sea monster rising from a pond, in thick clusters on the ground and cobbled together into a house.

Confront familiar foes at Universal Studios’ annual Halloween festivities, where big-budget scares meet iconic horror movie characters. You’ll be able to navigate multiple scare zones and mazes, including ones based on A Quiet Place, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Insidious, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Weeknd, an all-female assembly of the classic Universal Monsters and a selection of creatures inspired by Latin American folklore. Also, the “Terror Tram” edition of the studio tour will return with a Blumhouse takeover, while The Purge will again assume stage show duties over at the WaterWorld venue.

“Color in Motion” features close to 150 objects—pieces of technology, costumes, props and film posters—from the 1890s to today. Broken up into six themes, the exhibition will look at the connection between color, music and movement, like in early dance and animated shorts; decades of color technologies, from Technicolor processes and Disney’s women-led Ink & Paint Department to contemporary digital tools; monochrome silent films; the narrative role of color; and experimental works. The final gallery in the show is dubbed the Color Arcade, an interactive, neon-hued space that includes a corridor inspired by the trippy stargate from 2001: A Space Odyssey.