The most amazing events happening in L.A. this December (2024)

Every Sunday you can find dozens of food vendors at this market at ROW DTLA, with a mix of much-loved pop-ups and future foodie stars. Look out for this year’s new vendors, includingBasket Taco Co, Battambong Barbecue and Taste of the Pacific.

It’s more than just the low clearance: This exhibition at the Petersen explores the custom paint, engraving, upholstery and, of course, thegravity-defying suspension of the lowrider scene. In addition to iconic cars, the exhibit spotlights influentialartists inthe Chicano lowrider art scene. Even if you have no interest in cars, this colorful showcase of 20-plus lowered cars and bikes is excellent: The candy-colored paint jobs are dazzling, and the craftsmanship of the customizations—many vehicles are on display with their enginesand undercarriages visible—is remarkable. You’ll learn a little bit of history here, how the “low and slow” movement is rooted in the postwar Mexican American zoot suit counterculture, but largely this is an excuse to ogle someL.A. automotive icons.

The term CicLAvia stems from a similar Spanish word for “bike way,” and in L.A. it’s become a shorthand for the temporary, festival-like closing of L.A.’s streets.The event (inspired by the first Ciclovías in Bogotá, Colombia) welcomes bikes, tricycles, skateboards, strollers andbasically anything else without an engineto ride a rotating cast of car-free routes. You’ll inevitably always find a route each year aroundDowntown, but past events have taken it anywhere from the harbor to the San Gabriel Valley.Expect music, street performances and food trucks, as well as general whimsy and shenanigans along the way. Shop owners and restaurants along the CicLAvia route also tend to host specials. It goes without saying that you should bike or take the Metro to your desired spot along the route.

Move through a suite of sci-fi installations that depict a world overcome by rising seas and unchecked capitalism in this exhibition from Josh Kline. The MOCA Grand Avenue show includes a mix of sculpture, photography, moving images and ephemeral materials.

Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull, Los Tigres del Norte,Banda MS, Juanes and Carlos Vivestop this Latin music fest at Dodger Stadium.

See large ceramic and bronzesculptures atLACMAplus a few more sculptural pieces and collaborative video works atCAAMduring thiscrosstown exhibition of Black feminist artist Simone Leigh.

Forget Dorothy and her ruby slippers—head to Oz for the story of Elphaba and Glinda. Follow the Wicked cast down a different yellow brick road for a beautiful tale of friendship, love and courage. The ever “Popular” show returns to the Pantages to expose the back story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. You don’t even have to paint your skin green, just belt out “Defying Gravity” and “Something Bad” to fit in here. Wicked and its “Wonderful” set will inevitably win over your heart, and change your perspective on Emerald City “For Good.”

Broadway travels back in time to the 1950s, by way of the 1980s, in a noisy musical adaptation of the hit 1985 movie.

Cirque du Soleil is leaving behind DTLA for the beach with this staging of KOOZA in Santa Monica. The high-flying troupe heads under the big top for its first show next to the Santa Monica Pier since 2014.

The legendary rock band plays the Forum during its “Peace Out” tour, which is being billed as a farewell from the “Walk this Way” rockers.