In his 1977 Oscar winner Annie Hall, Woody Allen famously—and unfairly—complained that L.A.’s only cultural advantage was being able to turn right on red. Planners navigating L.A. today need have no such angst: Here and across the state, the cultural avenues run in all directions, with artful encounters at every turn.
Gallery Greats
From surf (Oceanside’s California Surf Museum) to silicon (Santa Clara’s Intel Museum and San Jose’s Tech Museum of Innovation), California’s event-ready cultural centers run the gamut. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz is remembered at his eponymous museum in Santa Rosa, and literary great John Steinbeck’s namesake National Center is in Salinas.
Pacific Northwest art graces the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, Pez lovers have their shrine in Burlingame, and automobiles rev up catered events at the Tri-Valley region’s popular Blackhawk Museum. The Golden State itself gets the spotlight at Sacramento’s California Museum and Oakland’s Museum of California.
Venues with a view include L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and Beverly Hills’ Paley Center for Media, both with rooftop spaces. The Long Beach Museum of Art sits on a Pacific perch, the multifunctional Palm Springs Art Museum sits at the base of Mt. San Jacinto, and Mendocino’s Gualala Arts Center is nestled among the trees. San Francisco’s oldest museum, the de Young, resides scenically in Golden Gate Park, while the city’s Contemporary Jewish Museum’s new home, adapting a landmark power substation, is a unique view in its own right.
Pasadena’s cultural dreamland—encompassing 14 museums, including the Norton Simon Museum and the Huntington Library—can be explored using the city’s flexible Artpass.
For a bit of intrigue, L.A.’s iconic Getty Center has partnered with Watson Adventures on a murder-mystery caper.
Show Time
Also teaming up for entertainment is the San Jose CVB, partnering with the Nederlander Producing Company to stage top-quality shows at the Center for the Performing Arts and historic Civic Auditorium.
"With enough notice, we can work with Nederlander to bring in customized concerts for groups," says Jeanne Sullivan, spokesperson for Team San Jose.
A comparable opportunity awaits groups in West Hollywood.
"Clients can get free access to one-of-a-kind events like getting your group on stage at House of Blues," says Bill Hynes, executive vice president of the West Hollywood Marketing and Visitors Bureau.
Newer acts like Sacramento’s 200- seat Cosmopolitan Cabaret are grabbing the spotlight.
In San Francisco’s East Bay, Berkeley is home to celebrated performing arts institutions such as UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, Greek Theatre and Julia Morgan Center for the Arts.
The 1,450-seat Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center is custom-built for high-tech gatherings, while in Costa Mesa, known as the "City of Arts," planners can arrange events at the world-class Cesar Pelli-designed Orange County Center for the Performing Arts. Home to four resident performing arts companies, this multifunctional complex includes the 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall.
From the stone amphitheater atop Marin County’s Mt. Tamalpais to L.A.’s Ford Amphitheatre, California loves to perform outside; other notables include the legendary Hollywood Bowl, the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, Wente Vineyards in Livermore and the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio. And downtown L.A., once the void that Woody was perhaps referring to, is now a cultural dynamo thanks to the Los Angeles Music Center’s powerhouse quartet of venues, including Walt Disney Concert Hall and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Theme Central
Opened in 1955, Disneyland has seen an estimated 500 million enter its gates. Now a full-blown resort with several hotels and the adjacent Downtown Disney entertainment district and Disney’s California Adventure, it is truly the magic kingdom of the state’s theme parks. A mere 10 miles away in Buena Park is another California legend and America’s first theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm, where the famed Depression-era Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner restaurant can serve 900 diners at once. Buena Park also counts Knott’s Soak City waterpark (in San Diego and Palm Springs, too) among its other attractions. Another major theme attraction and popular event venue is Universal Studios Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley, in addition to Warner Bros., where VIP tours go both behind and into the scenes. In Hollywood, Paramount Studios’ event spaces include the sunken Blue Sky B-Tank, used for filming water and ocean scenes.
Creature Feature
Coastal California finds a ready cultural translation via a host of event-capable aquariums and museums of the sea. Occupying a former sardine cannery on Cannery Row, the preeminent Monterey Bay Aquarium hosts events for up to 3,000 guests, who can go eye-to-eye with passing sharks and other marine life through the mesmerizing Ocean’s Edge and Outer Bay windows.
Spellbinding marine backdrops are also the highlight at Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific, showcasing some 12,500 ocean animals in 19 major habitats and providing guests hands-on interaction with sharks and rays. Other event favorites include San Pedro’s historic Cabrillo Marine Museum and the recently opened Sea Life aquarium at Legoland in Carlsbad.
Among several research institutions welcoming events are the Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, UC Santa Cruz’s bluff-top Seymour Marine Discovery Center and the renowned Ocean Institute in Dana Point, site of the long-running annual Toshiba Tall Ships festival.
Land-based wildlife is the backdrop at outstanding venues like the progressive San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park, the latter especially creature-comfortable with its vast free-range enclosures.
The event-friendly Santa Barbara Zoo, located on 30 lush acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the Andree Clark Bird Refuge and the Santa Ynez Mountains, is considered one of the world’s most picturesque zoos.
