One of our favorite parts about one year ending? Getting swept up in the anticipation of what’s to come in the next one. It could be exciting, it could be abysmal, but the uncertainty is half the thrill—at least when we’re talking about the sorts of leisure-focused topics we tend to cover here.
So now that we talked about the things we loved about 2023 in L.A., it’s time to put a spotlight on the near-future restaurant openings, art exhibition debuts and major infrastructure projects that we’ll be following next year. From a citywide comedy fest to a major museum expansion to some potential relief to LAX traffic, here’s what we’re most looking forward to in 2024 in L.A.
Exhibits on cyberpunk and Indigenous Futurism as part of Pacific Standard Time
The latest in a series of Getty-funded, multi-museum programs, “PST Art: Art & Science Collide” will allow more than 50 SoCal institutions to stage exhibitions on topics like artificial intelligence, constellations and climate change starting in September. Some of the shows on tap sound absolutely intriguing: The Academy Museum will examine cyberpunk in cinema, the Broad will plant trees around L.A. à la Joseph Beuys, MOCA will debut a large-scale commission from Olafur Eliasson, the Hammer Museum will commission a garden by South L.A.’s “gangsta gardener” Ron Finley and the Natural History Museum will restore a closed-for-decades diorama hall.
Netflix is a Joke Fest is staging a staggering number of huge comedy shows
Comedy festivals have been kind of hit-or-miss in L.A.; the annoyances of a festival format are a tough sell when Angelenos can see top talent in a small club basically any night of the week. But Netflix surprisingly made it work in 2022 with its city-spanning series, largely thanks to its impressive lineup. That looks to be the case again in 2024, when for two weeks in May venues from the Hollywood Bowl to the Forum to the Troubadour will host the likes of Ali Wong, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan, Chris Rock, Taylor Tomlinson, Bill Burr, Seth Rogen, Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, David Letterman and many, many more.
Smorgasburg fave Mid East Tacos is headed to Silver Lake
Of all 2024’s major announced restaurant openings, this might be the one we’re craving the most. Armen Martirosyan, who owns Glendale’s excellent Mini Kabob, plans on bringing his Armenian-inspired taco pop-up to the former Mh Zh space in Silver Lake. Never tried the garlicky Smorgasburg vendor before? Expect to find falafel tacos and burritos filled with chicken or steak kebabs starting in January.
A brand-new basketball arena, plus a spruced-up old one
For all those mythical Clippers fans in L.A., you’ll have a brand-new basketball arena to watch them in come later on in 2024: Intuit Dome, a slick-looking billion-dollar-plus venue in Inglewood across from SoFi Stadium and just down the street from the Forum, where their soon-to-be-crosstown rivals the Lakers once played. Speaking of their current arena mates, the Crypto.com Arena recently wrapped the second phase of a three-year project to spruce up the upper concourse, plus some suites and food offerings; a full-time pedestrian plaza on Chick Hearn Court and a new indoor-outdoor dining and entertainment area are still to come ahead of next season.
LACMA’s long-in-the-works new building will wrap construction
For the past few years, only about half of LACMA has been open; the eastern part of the campus, first built in the 1960s and added onto in the ’80s, was demolished in 2020 to make way for a single-building approach to the encyclopedic art museum’s collections. Now, work on that new building is finally nearing the finish line, with the David Geffen Galleries expected to be completed by the end of 2024 (though we’re not exactly sure yet when you’ll be able to view artwork inside of them). Angelenos have had some pretty strong opinions about the Peter Zumthor-designed amoeba-shaped building for about a decade now—and we’re sure its looming opening will invite plenty more to say.
A bunch of major musicals make their way to L.A. theaters
You can hear show tunes practically any night in L.A., but next year’s live theater slate has four particularly notable productions in store. In DTLA, the Ahmanson Theatre will host the Tony Award-winning A Strange Loop (June 5–30) as well as the much-talked-about Funny Girl (Apr 2–28), with newcomer Katerina McCrimmon in the lead role. And over in Hollywood, the Pantages Theatre will see a superb revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company (July 30–Aug 18) plus the return of the gravity-defying Wicked (Dec).
Shohei Ohtani
Though he was only ever a freeway away in Anaheim, the former Angels pitcher and DH might as well have been on the other side of the planet to Dodgers fans. But now the two-time MVP has inked a 10-year, $700-million deal with the Dodgers, and it’s a big deal. Ohtani is a phenomenon, the first player in MLB history with 10 wins as a pitcher and 40 home runs as a batter, and you can guarantee that Dodgers games are going to be a buzzed about spectacle for a good chunk of the 2024 season (now securing tickets, on the other hand, that we don’t look forward to…).
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will splash down at Disneyland
Speaking of Anaheim, Disneyland has a handful of major happenings in store across its resort grounds, including the transformation of the Paradise Pier Hotel into Pixar Place Hotel in late January, as well as across the street with the return of biennial fan convention D23 Expo in August. (We’re still waiting to find out when Porto’s and Din Tai Fung will start serving in Downtown Disney.) But the splashiest opening is set to debut inside of Disneyland itself in late 2024, when the Princess and the Frog-themed Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will be unveiled in the footprint of the former Splash Mountain with a colorful, music-filled take on the log flume ride.
Speed cameras will be allowed to be installed in a trio of SoCal cities
Consider this more of a “thing to look out for” (though we’d say the potential boost to pedestrian safety is very much a “thing to look forward to”): A new state law will allow Los Angeles, Glendale and Long Beach—plus San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland—to place speed cameras around their cities. There’s no date yet for when each city’s enforcement program will roll out (the bill requires at least 30 days notice), but the law will officially go into effect in 2024 and allow Los Angeles to install 125 of them, along with 18 in Long Beach and nine in Glendale. For the first two months of operation, any violations will be let off with a warning, as will first-time offenders caught going 11 to 15 miles per hour over the speed limit. Otherwise, the fines range from $50 to $500.
Destination Crenshaw will begin to turn 1.3 miles of streets into public art parks
How do you make L.A.’s often inhospitable streets friendlier to pedestrians? In the case of Destination Crenshaw, you turn them into open-air museums. The $100 million, public-private initiative is turning patches of Crenshaw Boulevard adjacent to the K Line into pocket parks with artworks (100 in total by the project’s end) that are created by and celebrate the area’s Black community. Five of those spaces will be unveiled in February, including Sankofa Park, an elevated walkway just south of Leimert Park Plaza that’ll include installations by Kehinde Wiley, Charles Dickson, Maren Hassinger and Artis Lane.
Getting to LAX will hopefully become a little less awful
One of our only predictions from last year that didn’t quite make its 2023 deadline, LAX’s Automated People Mover, or APM, is now eyeing a 2024 opening. Sometime next year, 44 automated train cars will begin ferrying passengers for free along an elevated 2.25-mile line that connects the airport terminals with a new parking garage and pick-up and drop-off area, as well as a consolidated rental car facility. In the fall of 2024, the APM will also link up with the K Line—meaning, yes, you’ll finally be able to take a train to LAX, with no bus transfers required.
