The best things to do in Los Angeles this week

Explore the Huntington’s Chinese Garden by moonlight during this after-hours stroll, where all of the area’s pavilions and pathways will be lit up. While you’re there, you can listen to live music or pick up something for dinner at the Jade Court Cafe, Freshwater Pavilio or the Terrace of Shared Delights.

Celebrate the Autry’s 35th anniversary with a carnival on the museum’s Griffith Park lawn, plus a market, games, tours, a trunk show, trick ropers and performances by Native Voices and WildHorse singers and dancers. And maybe the best part: It’s all available for 1988 ticket prices.

Walk across the grounds of the scenic King Gillette Ranch as the Santa Monica Mountains hideaway is illuminated with thousands of hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns. Nights of the Jack returns with an on-foot, mile-long trail this year (with food trucks and a “Spookeasy,” too). For 2023, Nights of the Jack has added an augmented reality scavenger hunt to the trail, as well as a Día de Los Muertos scene, lantern art and an area that it’s dubbed “the Enchanted Forest.”

Eddie Vedder’s Ohana Festival once again lands at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point, and the Pearl Jam frontman will once again be on the lineup. The Killers, HAIM, Eddie Vedder, the Chicks, Foo Fighters and Pretenders top this year’s fest, which goes down September 29 to October 1. The rest of the lineup includes the likes of Father John Misty, Japanese Breakfast, the War on Drugs and more.

Boney Island, a beloved kid-friendly Halloween event that called Griffith Park home until the pandemic, will return from its hiatus with a new setup at the Natural History Museum’s Nature Gardens. From September 28 to October 31, the illuminated installation will bring familiar fixtures (skeleton performers, shadow puppets) and mix them with some sciency additions (fossils, animal presentations).

See what more than 20 artists have been working on during this open house at the 18th Street Arts Center, on the grounds of Santa Monica Airport.

The Colombian singer has a truly impressive command of retro-chic aesthetics in her music videos—so expect a splashy show when she plays the Hollywood Bowl.

They’ve performed in cars, throughout a train station and via an air raid siren, and now L.A.’s most adventurous opera company is headed to a mountaintop observatory a mile above the city. The Industry will stage the world premiere of Star Choir inside the 100-inch telescope dome at Mount Wilson Observatory this fall. Described as “an interstellar chamber opera,” the two-day-only piece is co-directed by Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade and is composed by Gaines with libretto by Segade.

Get your feet stomping at this annual duo of pan-African and jazz festivals. For over 40 years, Day of the Drum has taken over Watts Towers for an afternoon of music, dance and poetry. The long-running Jazz Festival kicks off the following day with an afternoon of jazz performances and tributes.

The British garage-rockers return following their Primavera Sound appearance. The ferociously talented quartet headlines with its blend of full-tilt, sinewy rock, which is constantly undergoing sharp-witted evolution.

Chris Martin and his galaxy-conquering pop-rockers are back, with a new album Music of the Spheres. Whatever your thoughts on whether you ever want to hear “Yellow” ever again in your entire life (like, ever) Coldplay can always be counted on to put on a spectacular and impressively staged live show. H.E.R. and 070 Shake open during this show at the Rose Bowl.

Spooky season will get a bit boozier this year thanks to this touring horror-themed cocktail pop-up, which settles in at Lost Property for its L.A. stint. Halloween lovers can sip expertly mixed cocktails amid metal music and goth decor. On Tuesdays and Sundays, a $25 ticket gets you timed access to a rotating line-up of spooky drag and burlesque performers, plus your choice of one cocktail. On Wednesdays, the Black Lagoon will host a special Emo Night, which has a $15 cover. On all other days (Mon, Thu–Sat), the Halloween pop-up will be free to enter nightly, from 6pm to 2am.

As beloved an indie-rock institution as Hoboken has ever spat out, Yo La Tengo is known for employing its compendious knowledge of covers in its live shows (and also on 2015’s Stuff Like That There), so it's possible you'll hear anything from Hank Williams to Sun Ra at this outing.

Watch participants swim, bike and run their way along Zuma Beach and PCH at Saturday’s daunting Olympic Distance race and Sunday’s slightly shorter Classic Distance. Funds raised from both races benefit the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’s pediatric cancer research program.

You’ll find bleachers on the swim-to-bike transition area near lifeguard tower 10, but you can catch the bulk of the action (respectfully) from along PCH for the bike portion and by Zuma Beach for the run. Park at Malibu High School (30215 Morning View Dr) or at Point Dume.

Move at the speed of sound to this symphonic tribute to the music from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series, performed live by an orchestra and rock band at the Dolby Theatre.

He’s a Lakers legend, an NBA commentator, a rapper, a DJ and a mid-’90s movie genie, and now you can add haunted house MC to that list: Shaquille O’Neal will once again be hosting a Halloween event in Long Beach this fall. Shaqtoberfest will take over the grounds outside of the Queen Mary from late September through Halloween with a mix of family-friendly attractions and after-dark haunts. Now that the oceanliner is open again, there’ll be programming on the Queen Mary this year, too, including a search for spirits in the belly of the ship.

Its past installments have found attendees stealthing their way through a Victorian home and embarking on a Blade Runner-esque bounty hunt. And now this celebrated immersive horror theater event will once again return for an event at a nearly 150-year-old mansion. Delusion, an interactive seasonal event that combines elements of immersive theater with a more story-based approach to a walk-through haunted house, will again take over the Phillips Mansion, an 1875 estate in Pomona.

This haunted Griffith Park hayride once again returns to the mid-’80s fictitious town of Midnight Falls, which borrows a little bit of the road culture of Sons of Anarchy and the isolation of Twin Peaks. The Old Zoo tradition, which has been running for 15 years now, centers on a relatively lengthy hayride.

Encounter free-roaming monsters, terrifying mazes—spanning themes like a twisted carnival and an alien-inhabited space station—a “boo-fet” dinner and all sorts of other haunted houses and attractions at the OC theme park.