TARFEST: Free All-Ages Music + Arts Bash

Enjoy eight hours of tunes and to-dos near the bubbling, Wilshire-adjacent pools o' tar.

The mammoths and dire wolves and saber-toothed cats that once roamed the area we now call Hancock Park, the home of the La Brea Tar Pits, didn't pause to catch a few songs from a cool act on a nearby stage.

Surely these ancient animals heard the wind blowing through trees, and the noises, calls, and roars of other nearby beasties, but live tunes played on guitars and drums and such?

Not really a thing back in the Ice Age.

But today, in one of the world's great Ice Age fossil-focused locations, a person can hear live tunes, for free, on a special Saturday in September. That Saturday, in 2017, is Sept. 16, and the event?

Give a roar, or the animal-style bleat of your choice, for TARFEST is back.

It's the eight-hour, pay-nothing, really, pay-absolutely-nothing concert-and-art party at Hancock Park. The rocking, strolling, painting, sunshine-enjoying, moonlight-enjoying happens from 2 to 10 p.m. on the 16th, and you can arrive whenever and leave whenever, much like the mammoths and dire wolves used to do in the area, back in the day.

On the stage: LA Bouquet, Brainstory, Alina Bea, The Sovereign Artist, Love Ghost. DJs shall spin, too, and artists will participate in live painting happenings.

The Scene

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So watching an entire artwork come together, from beginning to completion, can be something you do, if you want to commit to the time.

Kid activities, a Lagunitas biergarten, and other cool, hang-out, stay-awhile goings-on dot the expansive, LACMA-close grounds.

Your host? LAUNCH LA. The tagline? "Excavating future culture on the Miracle Mile."

Cool.

Spying a mammoth or sabertoothed cat during your time near the pits? You'll need to visit the La Brea Tar Pits Museum for such sightings, but, if you do, you'll of course imagine these long-ago icons napping, sparring, and chowing down right in the very location you rocked out during TARFEST.

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