L.A. Honors Día de los Muertos With Altars, Processions and Mariachi

Grand Park closes its 10-day altar exhibition with a free Noche de los Muertos on Sunday, Olvera Street's nightly processions run through Monday, and Self Help Graphics, which started the city's public celebrations in 1972, holds its 53rd on Nov. 7.

By Herald Staff · Nov. 1, 2026, 11:30 AM ET

A towering Día de los Muertos altar covered in orange and yellow marigolds, with an arch of flowers, a white lace cloth and rows of framed photographs of loved ones, glows at night in Grand Park, with the lit tower of Los Angeles City Hall rising behind it and two marigold wreaths on tall poles at either side. — An altar of marigolds and family photographs glows beneath City Hall during Grand Park's Downtown Día de los Muertos exhibition in 2020. This year's 17 altars remain on view through Monday, Nov. 2. Photo: Cesar Arredondo/CASfreelancer (cropped) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (license).

Los Angeles marks Día de los Muertos this Sunday and Monday, Nov. 1 and 2. Across the city, marigold-covered ofrendas, candlelit processions and mariachi stages are honoring the dead. Most of the biggest events are free. Several wrap up within 36 hours, and the season's oldest celebration follows next Saturday.

The holiday has a long history here. The modern public celebration in Los Angeles began with the Eastside nonprofit Self Help Graphics & Art, which held its first Día de los Muertos event in 1972, the Los Angeles Times reported. In Mexico and other Latin American countries, families traditionally observe it on Nov. 1 and 2, but Southern California's calendar of festivities now starts in early October. The 27th annual festival at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which the Times called the biggest celebration of the holiday anywhere outside Mexico, drew tens of thousands of people on Oct. 24 under the theme "All Under One Sky."

Grand Park's Closing Night

Downtown, Gloria Molina Grand Park's Downtown Día de los Muertos closes its season Sunday with Noche de los Muertos, a free celebration from 3 to 7 p.m. The lineup includes the Negrete Family, a family band that mixes banda and pop; DJ Butchona; the cumbia group Lxs Cochinxs; and Mosa. Families can try Indigenous Mexican ribbon braiding, sugar skull decorating, face painting and paper weaving, and candlelight will fill the park after dark.

The park's outdoor exhibition of 17 altars stays up through Monday, Nov. 2, open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Artists and local groups built the altars under the theme "The Power of One," curated by East Los Angeles altarista Consuelo G. Flores. One altar, made by the East LA Stitchers and the Molina family, honors the late county supervisor the park is named for. Visitors may leave a photo, memento or message at a community altar.

Organizers say umbrellas are not allowed unless they measure under 12 inches when collapsed. That rule matters on a day when the National Weather Service expects the last showers from the Halloween storm to end by evening. Parking is $10 in the Music Center garages, and the park sits next to the Civic Center/Grand Park station on Metro's B and D lines.

Nine Nights on Olvera Street

A few blocks north, the merchants of Olvera Street are in the last two days of a nine-day festival they have held for nearly 40 years. The Olvera Street Merchants Association Foundation and El Pueblo Historical Monument present it, according to the festival's schedule. Community altars stand in the plaza through Monday. Teatro del Barrio performs "La Danza de la Muerte" at 6 p.m. each night.

At 7 p.m., the nightly novenario procession leaves from the top of the street. Aztec dancers, a ceremonial blessing with incense and "living muertos" dressed as skeletons lead it to the plaza kiosk, where a merchant family or community member's loved ones are honored. Sweet bread and drinks are free. Daytime entertainment and face painting start at 11 a.m. Sunday and at noon Monday.

Museums Join In

In Exposition Park, the Natural History Museum holds its Día de los Muertos celebration Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The day includes the museum's interpretive ofrenda and a seed-art altar by Gerardo Gutiérrez of Tierra Blanca Arts Center, with nine circles for the nine levels of the journey to Mictlán, the underworld. Mariachi Las Catrinas plays from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m., with storytime, dance classes and vendors. Because several events are happening in Exposition Park on Sunday, the museum warns of heavy traffic and limited parking.

On the Westside, the Fowler Museum at UCLA holds its annual festival from 1 to 4:30 p.m., with RSVPs requested. Visitors can make mini ofrendas and sugar skull piñatas with artist Maria Elena Cruz, and the afternoon ends with Mariachi Alta California, founded by former members of a UCLA student mariachi.

Boyle Heights Gets the Last Word

Self Help Graphics, which started it all, is spreading its 53rd season across two weekends. On Sunday, it hosts Noche de Ofrenda from 6 to 9 p.m. at Tonalli Studios, 4539 E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave. The free evening offers altars, poetry, light refreshments and memories shared about loved ones.

The organization's main 53rd annual celebration takes place Saturday, Nov. 7, as a block party outside its Boyle Heights building, which it plans to reopen in 2027. At 2 p.m., Danza Azteca Chicomecoatl leads a procession from Mariachi Plaza to First and Anderson streets. From 3 to 10 p.m., the block will hold live music and dance, community altars "of remembrance and resistance," a Muertos Market of local artists, food vendors and face painting. Admission is free, and it is presented with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino.

Original reporting by The Los Angeles Herald, drawing on Gloria Molina Grand Park, the Olvera Street Merchants Association Foundation, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Self Help Graphics & Art, the National Weather Service and the Los Angeles Times, as linked above.