Best Things To Do This Weekend In Los Angeles And Southern California: May 31 - June 2

Country music artist Zach Bryan continues his meteoric rise in the industry, bringing his Quttin’ Time tour to Crypto.com Arena. He just released a new single, "Pink Skies (Eulogy)," from the upcoming album The Great American Bar Scene, which made Pitchfork’s Selects playlist this week.

He’s been praised for innovating on this tour, giving away free live albums via QR code on physical tickets; he wrote on X: "this is the quittin time tour and we’re giving physical tickets at the door. There’s a QR code on that ticket; soon, whether you’ve already attended a show or if you’re going to, you can scan that and get a complete live recording of the show you attended besides unreleased tunes." Pretty cool!

No one does Pride better than West Hollywood, and this year’s lineup of performers – including Janelle Monae, Kylie Minogue, Big Freedia, and Trixie Mattel – not to mention all the fun surrounding events means this year’s festival will not disappoint. The annual weekend kick-off of a month celebrating LGBTQ+ culture includes a street fair, the women’s freedom festival featuring BIPOC women and non-binary musicians, comedians, poets, and activists, and Saturday’s Dyke March. Sunday, the main Pride Parade event is fun for the whole family with floats, bands, drill teams, dance teams, and more. So, padam padam your way down Santa Monica Blvd already!

Cars have been synonymous with Crenshaw for decades. Dealerships moved into the area in the 1950s and '60s to serve the growing Black middle class, and then the rise of the lowrider cruising scene developed through the 70s to today. Is there a deeper meaning of community that can be drawn from Crenshaw car culture? Zócalo Public Square tackles this question with artist and sculptor Charles Dickson, whose aptly named work “Car Culture” is on display in Sankofa Park; he’ll speak with Destination Crenshaw historian Larry Earl and Destination Crenshaw Public Art Director Heather Heslup.

Party with puppies – adoptable ones! – all afternoon with Something New in Venice. There will be a couple of hours of playtime and a programmed experience from Something New (which hosts all kinds of events, always focused on bringing people together around new experiences) and Best Friends Animal Society. Shelters are overrun in L.A. as we’ve reported, so this is a great opportunity to meet your new BFFs – furry ones and human ones!

It’s a little hard to explain sound art – it’s not music, but a series of installations and performances featuring sound experiences at their core. The annual Soundpedro event – put on by Long Beach art collective FLOOD – this year honors the theme of “charivari,” a word derived from Latin, which is “sometimes used to make a statement or protest (think clanging pots and pans).” We know, it sounds a little weird, but then the descriptions of the pieces featured sound really cool and transportive – like Akari Komura’s “In a flock,” which captures the soundscape of a Tokyo train station and “a repetitive bird call opens and closes the piece, moving from synthetic digital signal to a real animal call in the natural environment.” The event takes over several gallery spaces at Angels Gate Cultural Center, a former military outpost, now home to more than 50 artist studios and an amphitheater.

Join in an early Juneteenth-inspired celebration for families! There will be free carnival rides, games, dance classes (it is Debbie Allen, after all!) and health screenings from MLK Community Healthcare, an L.A. Ignite basketball booth and food from L.A.’s top food trucks.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, or at least as author Athena Aktipis and comedian Shane Mauss know it. The duo presents a collaborative performance about “delighting in dystopia” alongside bluegrass from the Honey Buckets at Alternity as they take the audience on a trip through Aktipis’s book, A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times, with musical parodies, storytelling, improv, and surprise guests.

No longer alliterative but much-improved traffic-wise, the Getty Center's summer concert series Fridays Off the 405 has moved to Saturdays (we recall those traffic-filled afternoons well…). This year’s series kicks off with Ethiopian jazz and funk artist Hailu Mergia. Next up is Slauson Malone 1 on June 15. Performances continue through August 24, with tickets released three weeks prior to each concert.

Join MindTravel for a tranquil dusk journey up Los Liones with a moving meditation walk. Los Liones is a moderate trail and one of my favorites for views and serenity. The MindTravel events include headphones and a meditation that you follow on the walk for an immersive experience.

The UCLA Small Screen/Big Screen series is a brilliant way of understanding some of our favorite movies more deeply by showing a narrative film and then its source material subject back-to-back. This time, they will start with Robert Redford’s 1994 film Quiz Show starring John Turturro and a pre-Voldemort Ralph Fiennes, telling the story of the real scandal that happened on the 1950s quiz show Twenty-One. The screening is followed by a showing of original episodes of Twenty-One (with the real commercials!).

Pride means many things to many people, and fun drinks to celebrate are certainly on that list. Here’s a quick round-up of some of the cocktails local bars and hotels have dreamt up this June.

Agua Viva by José Andrés has a featured cocktail all month long, benefitting The Trevor Project.

Andaz West Hollywood has a Pride Package (bookable with the code PRIDE) for those staying May 31 - June 2 and June 7 - 9 with complimentary welcome drinks, access to Pride-themed pool parties on the hotel’s rooftop, late check-out, and up to two drink tickets (one per guest). The hotel will kick off the month of Pride with a Rooftop Pool Party on June 1, with free entry for guests ($20 for non-guests).

Thompson Hollywood and tommie Hollywood guests will receive a bottle of Whispering Angel Rosé with the booking of a room. For all Stay Proud package sales, 10% of proceeds go to the Los Angeles LGBT Center in Hollywood.

33 Taps and Stache will have cocktail specials, including the Padam Padam! made with Casamigos Blanco, pineapple, lime, and blue Curaçao and the Murder on the Dance Floor made with Casamigos Mezcal, lime, soda, Tajin, and jalapeño.

Toca Madera and Casa Madera are featuring a Pride Cocktail called La Equidad: pineapple-infused Maestro Dobel Blanco, house coconut cordial, Aperol, Combier Le Bleu, lime; $2 from every cocktail sale will be donated to the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

Taste dozens of wines, craft brews, specialty kombuchas and more at the L.A. Wine Fest in Long Beach. There’s also live music and food trucks, plus your ticket purchase benefits the L.A. Boys and Girls Clubs.

Fight food waste at the annual Zest Fest community event with Food Forward. Learn about volunteer opportunities and enjoy games, refreshments and activities with the whole family.