Almost every Day of the Dead event in California happens once. One evening, one procession, one crowd, and if you had something else on that night you have missed it for a year. The observance at Olvera Street is structured completely differently: it runs for nine consecutive nights, and that changes both what it is and who can attend it.
The best cultural events in this city are often free, repeated over several nights, and completely absent from the places you usually look. Tell Karpo what is on near you and get the ones you can just walk into.
Nine nights, not one
The celebration runs from around the 25th of October to the 2nd of November, and has done for close to forty years. Each evening at seven a novenario procession begins in the plaza at the top of Olvera Street and ends with a ceremony honouring the dead, including an indigenous blessing. Altars, exhibits and entertainment run through the days alongside it.
The novenario — nine nights of prayer for the dead — is the structure this is built on, and it explains why the event does not behave like a festival. A festival peaks. This accumulates. Each night is a repetition rather than a bigger version of the last, and going on the second night rather than the ninth costs you nothing except the crowd.
That is the practical takeaway for anybody who has looked at the Los Angeles Day of the Dead calendar and found everything collides. This one has nine chances built into it, seven of which almost nobody uses.
Where it happens matters
Olvera Street sits inside El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the historic core where the city was founded in 1781 — the oldest part of Los Angeles, a block from Union Station, and a pedestrian market street of stalls, historic buildings and restaurants.
The setting does something no purpose-built venue can. A procession moving through a narrow brick street lined with stalls, under strung papel picado, past buildings that predate the state, is a different experience from the same procession crossing a park. The street is enclosed, the sound holds, and the whole thing is at a human scale that large events almost never achieve.
- Nine nights, roughly 25 October to 2 November, in its fourth decade
- Novenario procession begins at 7pm each evening from the plaza at the top of the street
- Ends nightly with a ceremony and an indigenous blessing for departed loved ones
- Altars, exhibits and entertainment through the day
- Free to attend, and Union Station is a block away
Which night to pick
The 1st and 2nd of November are the days themselves, and they are the busiest by a wide margin. If the point of your visit is the atmosphere of a large crowd, take those. If the point is to see the altars, follow the procession without being at the back of it, and speak to the people who built things, take a weeknight in the middle.
Arrive before seven regardless. The procession starts at the top of the street on time, and turning up at ten past means joining a moving event you did not see the beginning of. Give yourself half an hour beforehand to walk the length of the street and look at the altars in situ, because once the procession passes, the street is full.
One thing that becomes obvious after a couple of nights and is invisible on the first: the altars change over the nine days. Things are added, candles are replaced, photographs appear that were not there earlier in the week, and the whole display is progressively built rather than installed complete on day one. Coming twice — early in the run and again near the end — is free, takes an hour each time, and is the only way to see that happen.
How to be there
This is a devotional observance held in public rather than a performance staged for visitors, and everyone is welcome on that basis. Follow the procession rather than walking through it, stand aside for the participants at the blessing, and keep the phone down during the ceremony itself — the blessing is the part of the evening least suited to being filmed and the part people most often film.
Children are entirely appropriate here and the nine-night structure makes it easy to bring them: an early weeknight, an hour on the street, home before it gets late. It is also one of the more accessible introductions to the holiday available in the city, precisely because it is small, repeated and free.
Getting there and what is around
Union Station is directly across the road, which makes this the single easiest event of the season to reach without a car — every regional rail line, Amtrak, the B and D subway lines and the A Line all converge there. Driving into this part of downtown in the evening and finding parking is possible and pointless.
Around the street: Chinatown is a ten-minute walk north, Little Tokyo is fifteen minutes south, and the restaurants on Olvera Street itself are the obvious option for dinner either side of the procession. The historic buildings of El Pueblo, including the oldest standing house in the city, are open during the day, so an afternoon visit followed by the seven o'clock procession makes a full and inexpensive evening.
Practical notes
Día de los Muertos at Olvera Street, El Pueblo de Los Angeles, downtown Los Angeles. Nine nights of observance running roughly from 25 October to 2 November, now in its fourth decade. A novenario procession begins at 7pm each evening in the plaza at the top of the street and concludes with a ceremony and indigenous blessing; altars, exhibits and entertainment run alongside. It is free to attend. Weeknights in the middle of the run are far quieter than 1 and 2 November. Arrive before seven, follow rather than cross the procession, and take the train — Union Station is directly opposite.
Tags: #LosAngeles #DiaDeLosMuertos #OlveraStreet #ElPueblo #FreeThingsToDo #DowntownLA #DayOfTheDead #Novenario #LAEvents #LAHistory #PapelPicado #ThingsToDoLA #Culture #Altars
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