It's Free, It's Huge, It's Night on Broadway

The DTLA block party'll draw thousands of people ready to enjoy street performance, art, and The B-52s.

What to Know

  • Saturday, Jan. 27
  • 3 p.m. to midnight
  • 1st Street to Olympic Boulevard

If winter owns anything, pop culture-wise, it is snowmen, and cups of hot cocoa, and thick novels. Springs? Blooming flowers and big breezes. Fall? Foliage, yup, and TV premieres. And summer, straight-up, and 100%, is all about the block party.

But here's the thing with summer in Southern California: It's so lovely, and so very nice, that it will lend wintertime a block party to enjoy, now and then, and some summery temperatures, too. In fact, the annual block party that happens at the end of each January in LA is so large, and so rollicking, that you can't help but think that summer loaned winter its very best celebration.

It's Night on Broadway we speak of, the out-sized bash born of the Bringing Back Broadway iniative, an initiative near to Councilmember José Huizar's heart. It began a decade ago, and today? Goodness, golly, and gargantuan wows: It is mega, covering ten blocks of an always-busy thoroughfare downtown.

An always-busy thoroughfare that will be closed to cars on Saturday, Jan. 27, for several hours. Night on Broadway is, in fact, nine hours long, and while you don't have to stay for all nine hours, you might want to, as there shall be "Hundreds of Acts, Artists, and Activities" to appreciate, applaud, and explore.

All for free. We mean, this festival is really incredibly free, save any chow you want to buy along the way, or any local businesses you want to shop in and support.

If you want to soak in some sunbeams, be there at 3 p.m., when it begins. If you're an owl type who likes the wee smalls, Night on Broadway'll whoop it up all the way to midnight.

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.

Things to do this weekend: WonderCon, a pop culture wonderland, alights in Anaheim

Theodore Payne Foundation's ‘poppy-ular' Poppy Days Spring Sale is about to sprout

The B-52s will rock the 2018 bash, and WAR, too, and Santa Cecilia, plus so many others (all good, all fab, all worth you perusing now). There are ten stages in all.

And ten blocks, which makes it all a snap to remember. The top of the blocks is 1st street, Olympic Boulevard is where the festival ends, and sandwiched in the middle? So much, as said already, but probably stands to be said again. So much in the way of sounds to hear, sights to admire, doings to do.

Dearest summer, you're still five months off, but you've loaned winter, once again, one of your top-notch come-togethers, a real city-sweet celebration, the kind of outdoor happening that draws thousands of locals eager to be among their neighbors while reveling in art, music, life.

And you've loaned January some June-style weather, that's for sure. It may not be a tank-and-shorts kind of night at Night on Broadway, but the daytime hours may deliver a June-y burst of warm feeling. Soak it up, for free, in DTLA.

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