Your SoCal Weekend, October 23–25: Five Ways to Get Into Fall

A weekend can disappear inside the planning: five links in a group chat, two promising festivals, then a long discussion about parking. Start with a simpler decision. Do you want to listen, make something, spend time with a community celebration, dress up or head for the mountains? The destination becomes easier to choose once you know the kind of day you want.

For October 23–25, these five choices offer different answers: listening, making, remembering, dressing up and spending time in the mountains. Three have no admission charge; two require paid admission. We would choose one main destination, with Friday jazz as a possible separate local evening. Anaheim, Oceanside and Big Bear are alternatives on this list, not stops on one ambitious driving route.

Our first pick this weekend: Anaheim Fall Festival. For a family or a group with different interests, it offers the strongest balance of free entry, hands-on activities and things to watch. You can keep it to an afternoon or make the parade your evening anchor. The choice comes with one important detail: the daytime festival ends at 4pm and the parade starts at 7pm, so plan a real break if you want both. The other four picks below suit different moods, budgets and amounts of travel.

Anaheim: make something in the afternoon, then decide about the parade

Anaheim’s free Fall Festival runs Saturday, October 24, from 10am–4pm at Center Greens in downtown Anaheim. The program lists local makers, live performances and activities including wooden-ornament painting and piñata making. Those are reasons to spend time with how something is made, not only to move from stall to stall. The festival page is the place to review the activity list before choosing your arrival.

Choose one activity before you begin browsing, then leave room for something unexpected. A wooden ornament gives a child a small project to finish; a maker’s stall may turn a passing look into a conversation about a material. The festival also lists a tiny cinema pairing silent film with live music—a particularly appealing detour for someone more interested in watching than painting. Free entry keeps the visit flexible, while individual activity conditions and purchases still need their own check.

The evening parade creates a second, different reason to come. The festival page lists a 7pm parade, which leaves a three-hour gap after the daytime festival ends. That gap is the important planning detail. A family arriving at 10am should not assume the whole day will be one continuous program. Pick an afternoon visit, a parade evening, or a full day with a proper meal and rest break between them.

Our preference for a first family visit is a manageable daytime block unless the parade itself is the main attraction. If you do stay, use the official parade route and parking page to choose your viewing area and exit. It lists free garages as well as paid parking, road closures and a particularly useful warning: City Hall parking has no entry or exit from 3–9pm because of parade closures. A free space is less useful when it keeps you there longer than intended.

We picked Anaheim for the balance between watching and making. The parade is a hometown project built by volunteers and community organizations; the daytime activities let visitors participate on a smaller scale. That makes it a stronger fit for mixed ages than an adults-only night out, provided you do not ask the youngest person to carry a morning-to-night schedule. Official festival and parking information →

Friday: let a voice mark the end of the working week

At Jazz at LACMA on October 23, vocalist Marina Pacowski performs from 6–8pm at Smidt Welcome Plaza. The concert is free. The French-born, Los Angeles-based singer gives this particular Friday a focus: you are going to hear a voice interpret a song, rather than simply checking off a familiar museum landmark. LACMA’s event page provides the date, location and current program.

A voice gives a jazz evening an immediate way in. A phrase can stretch, pause and return while the accompaniment changes its shape around it. You can enjoy that exchange before recognizing a single song title. For someone coming to live jazz for the first time, the attraction is that a familiar idea can sound newly made in the moment. Stay for a few complete songs and give the performance time to become more than background music.

This is our low-commitment choice for an LA-based reader who wants the weekend to begin before Saturday. Plan the trip around the 6pm start rather than treating the concert as something to squeeze in after errands. Bring an extra layer and decide how you will get home before settling into the evening. An outdoor listening plan also needs a same-day look at the organizer’s updates.

The event page points to Metro’s D Line and Wilshire/Fairfax Station, a useful option to compare with driving from your actual starting point. Free concert admission does not settle your transport or dinner budget. If you add gallery time, use the museum’s separate visit and ticket information; the concert listing is not a general admission ticket. For more about approaching the series, our Jazz at LACMA story is a companion, while this week’s performer and date come from the current listing.

Choose it for: a music-first Friday with a clear two-hour program. Choose another option if your main pleasure is hands-on activities or a large daytime street festival. Official concert details →

Oceanside: give remembrance a Sunday afternoon

The 25th annual Oceanside Día de los Muertos Festival takes place Sunday, October 25, from 10am–4pm in downtown Oceanside. Visit Oceanside lists it as a free family event with music, art, food vendors and children’s crafts. The organizer’s festival site highlights altars, a chalk cemetery and the Por Siempre car show. This is a community celebration with several ways to spend time, not simply a backdrop for a costume photograph.

Begin with an altar or memorial display before deciding which performance or vendor to see next. Read any explanation that is provided and let the details establish why the display is there. Ask before making close portraits of participants, and give people room to spend time with something personal. These are our suggested habits for a thoughtful visit; you can enjoy the music and food without treating every part of the festival as a prop.

This is the choice we would make for a family that wants a daytime cultural outing with room to browse. Keep the plan loose enough for a craft, a performance and a meal, then stop when attention runs out. Free entry makes a shorter visit easier to justify. It does not make food, travel or every purchase free, so set those parts of the budget separately.

For arrival, the organizer’s Attend page gives 300 North Coast Highway as the GPS destination and describes the event across downtown blocks near City Hall. The organizer and tourism page both warn that parking is limited and recommend public transport. Compare the actual outbound and return service before choosing a train; a useful station connection still has to work with your homeward journey.

If coming from LA, make the choice about the celebration rather than the map. Oceanside is worth the longer outing when the altars, music and community gathering are what you want to spend time with. If the aim is simply an easy afternoon out, Anaheim may leave your group more energy for the event itself. Official festival details →

OMA after dark: make the costume part of the art

A few blocks and a very different kind of outing: Oceanside Museum of Art’s Art After Dark runs Saturday, October 24, from 7–11pm. It is a 21+ event. OMA lists admission at $85 for nonmembers, $65 for members and $175 for All Access VIP. The theme, Anatomy of the Surreal, connects the evening to the exhibition David Adey: Sacrificial Bodies.

What makes this worth considering is the invitation to turn an idea into something worn. The costume categories include upcycled design, interpretation of the exhibition and interpretation of the surreal theme. For our own starting point, imagine one familiar detail moved somewhere unexpected: a sleeve that suggests another arm, a paper shape that changes a silhouette, an ordinary jacket transformed by repeated fabric forms. Those are costume ideas to develop, not descriptions of works you will see.

A large outfit is optional; OMA explicitly welcomes people in a costume, a Halloween look or comfortable clothes. That makes the event approachable for a curious observer as well as someone who wants to enter the competition. If making a costume sounds more exciting than buying one, our small weaving project offers another way to notice how materials change a surface. Use that curiosity here without feeling obliged to produce a complex garment.

The financial decision deserves to be clear before the creative one gets carried away. Two nonmember admissions at the published rate total $170 before checkout charges, transport, food or accommodation. Compare that with the free Sunday festival nearby. They are different purchases: one is an adults-only evening centered on art and dressing up, the other a daytime community celebration. Neither ticket category tells you which experience your group will prefer.

For readers considering both on separate days, an overnight stay is a possible planning choice rather than a required package. Price the room and the journey before deciding. If you only want a free museum visit or are bringing anyone under 21, this after-hours party is the wrong option. Official Art After Dark information and ticket options →

Big Bear: choose your music—and your day—before the mountain drive

Big Bear Lake Oktoberfest runs this weekend at the Convention Center, with Saturday, October 24, listed from 1pm–midnight and Sunday, October 25, from noon–6pm. The Weekend 7 entertainment schedule pairs Die Sauerkrauts indoors with Mary Dyer Band and Sunglasses at Night outdoors on Saturday; Sunday lists Die Sauerkrauts inside and Sunglasses at Night outside. Check the stage and time you actually want, rather than treating all admission options as identical.

The appeal here is time spent with a band, a shared table and a mountain stay. We would give it the main part of a day instead of tacking it onto another faraway festival. If German music is the draw, the indoor stage matters; if you prefer the outdoor lineup, that changes the setting you are choosing. General admission and guaranteed preferred seating also solve different problems.

For a price reference, Visit Big Bear’s Weekend 7 table lists Saturday adult admission at $39.33 and child admission at $14.84 for the 1pm and 4pm entry options. Sunday adult admission is listed at $18.03, with children 12 and under free under the organizer’s Sunday policy. Two adults and two children aged 3–12 therefore total $108.34 on the Saturday reference rates, versus $36.06 on Sunday—a $72.28 admission difference. Confirm your date and ticket category in the actual booking; these are listed-rate comparisons, not a reserved checkout quote.

Those numbers make Sunday worth considering for a family that does not need the late-night atmosphere. They also leave food, games, travel and any lodging outside the admission comparison. A cheaper ticket does not automatically make a mountain trip cheaper than staying closer to home. Put the whole trip beside the free coastal or city choices before deciding.

Read the organizer’s ticket conditions before paying: dates cannot be casually swapped to another weekend, refund restrictions apply, and there is no re-entry. Preferred indoor and outdoor seating cannot simply be exchanged after purchase. For the journey back, use the organizer’s transport page to plan a local trolley or shuttle connection; published late-service times on that page are inconsistent, so confirm the actual last departure rather than relying on an assumed midnight ride. The local service is not transport back to LA. Official Weekend 7 ticket options →

Choose the memory first, then build the plan

For a short LA evening, choose the Friday concert. For a family that wants to make and watch, choose Anaheim and decide in advance whether the parade belongs in the plan. For a free cultural Sunday, choose Oceanside. For adults who want to turn an outfit into a creative project, choose OMA. For a mountain-centered weekend, compare Big Bear’s Saturday and Sunday experience as carefully as the price.

Then give your choice a little space: one main event, one meal plan and a way home that does not depend on everything running perfectly. Our Catalina day-trip planning guide uses the same habit of working backward from the return journey. It applies just as well to the last train, a parade road closure or a mountain shuttle.

A good October weekend does not need to look like someone else’s highlight reel. It might be a song you stay still for, a small object a child finishes, a memorial that makes you pause or a costume that finally makes an idea visible. Choose the event that leaves room for that moment.