Every day· Next Nov 10
$45+
Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 60…
Grown adults come out of this one surprised to be wiping their eyes, which is not what anybody expects from a show with aerialists in it. A Depression-era circus, a runaway veterinary student, and a love story told under canvas that smells of sawdust and something more dangerous. Sara Gruen's novel had a long life in book clubs before Broadway got to it, and the staging is why people talk about the production rather than the plot: real circus arts, bodies in the air, puppetry conjuring an entire menagerie out of almost nothing while you watch it happen. It is a big old-fashioned romance done in a way theater has not quite managed before. The touring production plays Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa, off the 405 near South Coast Plaza, in November. Bring somebody who still cries at the good ones and does not apologize for it.
Sep 22, 2026
$45+
Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 60…
A whole generation learned what a musical could be from a dancing teapot and a candelabra, and most of them never fully recovered. Put it on a real stage with a full orchestra swelling underneath Be Our Guest, and watch those same people — grown now, frequently with kids of their own — turn into puddles in the dark.
This is grand, gold-drenched, family-first Broadway with no apology for any of it: the ballroom, the enchanted castle, the yellow gown lit so it reads from the back row of the hall. The touring production has the scale to actually deliver that ballroom, which is the moment everything hinges on and the one cheap productions always get wrong.
Segerstrom in Costa Mesa is an easy stop off the freeway near the mall.
Make it a first big theater night for a small person, or go entirely for yourself. Some stories really are worth telling as a tale as old as time.
While you are lookingDifferent scene, same night out.
Every Wednesday· Next Oct 14
Free
4900 Newport Ave, San Diego, CA 92…
Wednesday is the evening Ocean Beach stops being a postcard and goes back to being a neighborhood.
From four until eight, Newport Avenue between Cable and Bacon turns into one long conversation — past the record stores and surf shops and dive bars that have outlasted most of the vendors' youngest customers.
It is a certified farmers market, so the produce is the real thing: growers, baked goods, flowers, honey, kombucha, and prepared food from people who are here every single week. The regulars are the point. You start recognizing faces around the third visit, and that is when it stops being an errand.
Dogs come by default. This is OB.
Newport Ave between Cable and Bacon Streets, Ocean Beach. Free street parking on the side streets.
Nothing about it is remarkable, which is precisely the thing people miss after they move away.
Jul 1 – Jul 4, 2027
Los Angeles Convention Center, 120…
You will be tired in a way that feels earned. Four days, a hundred thousand people, and not one of them needs you to explain what you are talking about.
The largest anime convention in North America takes the Los Angeles Convention Center over Fourth of July weekend and spills into the JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton beside it. Industry panels, screening rooms, autograph sessions with voice actors and composers, concerts that sell out weeks ahead. Studios from Japan use this as their main North American announcement stage — if a sequel or adaptation is being revealed, it often happens in a room you could be standing in.
The exhibit hall carries imported merchandise and collaboration exclusives that surface nowhere else on the continent.
Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S Figueroa St. Thursday through Sunday. Badges run from top-tier early-access down to single-day passes.
Book the connected hotel corridor months out. Everyone who tells you that learned it the hard way.
In 8 days· Oct 17
Free
Crenshaw Blvd (Martin Luther King …
The smell reaches you before the stages do - barbecue and catfish and soul food covering a mile-plus of Crenshaw Boulevard, because every major Black-owned restaurant in South LA has a booth out here and the food is the center of the whole thing. For one Saturday in October, this stretch between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Leimert Park Village becomes one of the largest street festivals in Los Angeles.
More than 300,000 people move through in a single day. The format is street vendors, restaurant booths, live music stages, a car show, health screenings, and community organization presence - but it is the food and the crowd that make it. Founded by the Los Angeles Sentinel, the oldest Black-owned newspaper in California, it has run for over two decades and stayed a genuine community institution: multigenerational, neighborhood-rooted, and enormous. This is Leimert Park and Crenshaw at their fullest.
Free to attend. Crenshaw closes to traffic for the day. The Metro K Line stops at Leimert Park Village and is the easiest way in and out. Arrive early if you want to move - by noon the crowds are deep.
Monthly· Next Nov 4
Free
Bayard St and Garnet Ave, Pacific …
A hundred and fifty steps from the ocean, a corner of Pacific Beach turns into a block party that nobody had to organize you into.
Fire pits going. Nine to twelve food vendors rotating week to week, so the thing you loved last time might be gone and the thing replacing it might be better. Live music that is genuinely local — acoustic sets, small bands, the occasional DJ. Games. A crowd of PB locals and students and people who simply wandered up from the beach still holding a towel.
Past vendors have run birria tacos, banh mi, craft lemonade, Hawaiian shave ice, artisan pastries, small-batch hot sauces. A few craft sellers usually set up alongside.
This is a neighborhood gathering, not a ticketed event. Free. No RSVP. You walk up.
Bayard St and Garnet Ave, Pacific Beach. 5 to 9:30 PM.
Bring a layer — it cools off fast after sunset, even in August.
Every 1st Saturday· Next Nov 7
Free
400-500 5th Ave, Gaslamp Quarter, …
Every Saturday and Sunday, the heart of San Diego historic Gaslamp Quarter transforms into an outdoor open-air artisan market. The Gaslamp Artisan Market -- known as GLAM -- runs the length of 5th Avenue between Market Street and J Street, with 70 local artisans showcasing handmade, one-of-a-kind goods. This is where San Diego independent makers set up shop: handcrafted jewelry, original paintings, ceramics, leather goods, woven textiles, hand-poured candles, botanical skincare, and prints from local artists who live and work in this city every day. The market hosts live music from local musicians throughout the day. GLAM is free to attend and open to all ages. Shaded seating is available. The market runs 10 AM to 4 PM. Getting there: Located in the Gaslamp Quarter, easily accessible by trolley (Gaslamp Quarter station on the Blue and Orange line). Street parking and paid lots available on nearby blocks. No ticket required. This recurring weekend market is one of San Diego most accessible community gathering points for makers and collectors alike.
Pioneer Boulevard shuts down, and for one day the biggest Little India in Southern California becomes the biggest Diwali party west of the Mississippi.
The Artesia Diwali Mela takes over seven blocks of Pioneer Boulevard — from 183rd Street to 188th Street — with a main stage of Indian music and dance performances, dozens of food vendors serving everything from chaat to biryani to fresh jalebi, cultural booths, merchants with jewelry and textiles, and a street-level energy that makes Diwali feel like exactly what it is: the festival of lights brought to life in a California parking lane.
Sunday, November 10, 2026, 11 AM to 10 PM. Pioneer Boulevard, Artesia, CA. Free admission.
If you know someone who grew up celebrating Diwali and hasn't been to this yet, send them this. If you didn't grow up celebrating Diwali and want to understand why a billion people do — come find out.
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