Free ‘n Breezy: Redondo Pier Kite Fest

Watch pretty zigzaggers dart and fly near the pier.

Every season has its wind-wonderful items, the drift-catching stuff that can capture the flitty feeling of a particular time of year.

Think of the cloth ghosts of October, the ones that haunt your front porch from its upper rafters. Or ponder the pinwheels of summer, those stripey, neon-hued spinners that add some visual oomph to a garden or yard.

Kites are a colossal and colorful entrant in the breeze-beautiful category all year long, but maybe no more so than March, when we start to think spring thoughts while pausing by the kite shelf at the local store's seasonal aisle.

Best stop pausing and start flying that dragon or butterfly or bluebird or nylon Space Shuttle or geometric box: The 42nd annual Festival of the Kite at Redondo Beach Pier will head for the skies over the beach on Sunday, March 13. 

Redondo Pier Association and Sunshine Kite Company are the day's hosts.

Now there's two ways to approach this venerable fest. Choice A) involves you showing with a kite, any kite, it doesn't need to be a work-of-art, multiple-part kite. Choice B) involves you showing with no kite, to simply admire the flyers, and those people flying them, while hanging out on the sand below.

Recent days have seen some breezy conditions; will the afternoon of March 13 be good to attendees and keep the kind-to-kites currents flowing? Let's all make a silent wish against the sort of still air that can often visit us in the summertime months.

The Scene

Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.

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The hours are perfectly afternoon-ish -- noon to 5 o'clock -- but remember that Daylight Saving Time begins on March 13. Not that such matters as clocks hold sway in the world of kites, of course; a kite is only concerned with altitude, and dance-ability, and staying off the ground, we imagine (though, full disclosure, we've never personally interviewed a kite about its important goals).

It's one of LA beachdom's sweetest and longest-running scenes. Welcome back, Redondo flyers, one of the surest  signs of a SoCal spring.

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