Smart Meetings

Downtown L.A. also has something for visitors that few other cities can claim. There’s constant, ongoing filmmaking everywhere one looks. Pedestrian activity is on the upswing. The climate is perfect for it; the perennial California sun made famous in so many Beach Boys songs keeps the days warm, while the relative lack of humidity keeps the nights mild. Rain is so infrequent that when it occurs, usually in spring, it causes traffic snarls the way a blizzard does in the Midwest.

The city-owned Los Angeles Convention Center (lacclink.com), located on a 54-acre site adjacent to Staples Center in downtown’s South Park, is the primary meeting site. Encompassing 870,000 total sq. ft. of meeting and exhibition space, its modernist glass-and-steel exterior is quickly recognizable. Its special features include a 299-seat theater, restaurants and catering, and 6,000 parking spaces (a very big deal in L.A.) in two lots and four covered facilities. The largest of its four halls, South Hall, has 346,890 sq. ft. of exhibit space and an additional 16,614 sq. ft. designed for registration.

For something very different, Los Angeles Center Studios (lacenterstudios.com) rents its six 18,000-square-foot soundstages for meetings and other events. This privately owned studio is on the 20-acre former headquarters for Unocal (Union 76) oil company. The acreage includes private streets that can be rented. Because of television filming, its soundstages can’t be booked more than three months out. But its buildings have two outdoor decks with views of the city, as well as a 400-seat, state-of-the art theater and some other sites that can be reserved further out.

Located just south of downtown in Exposition Park, near University of Southern California, the California Science Center (californiasciencecenter.org) actively promotes its facilities for rentals and meetings. Its 240,000-square-foot Ahmanson Building can accommodate up to 4,000 guests, who can also enjoy the gallery exhibits. The building’s 7,500-square-foot Donald P. Loker Conference Center is available during regular museum hours and can seat 750 theater-style or 600 banquet-style. And the new Wallis Annenberg Building for Science Learning and Innovation can accommodate up to 2,000 for a reception and features a 3,000-square-foot meeting room. The center has a 2,000-space parking structure as well as designated valet or bus drop-off areas.

Culture lovers target broad Grand Avenue in the Bunker Hill area. There, after the row of modern, glass-and-steel high-rises end, is the curving, swooping metallic bird-like shape of architect Frank Gehry’s 2003 Walt Disney Concert Hall (musiccenter.org). It has proved such an attraction that daytime audio-assisted and guided walking tours are offered. Tours do not go into the auditorium due to Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Master Chorale rehearsals, but cover other features of the hall, including its tucked-away garden with a 15-ton rose-shaped Delftware fountain.

Less than one block away from Disney Hall is the rest of the busy 1960s-era Los Angeles Music Center complex (musiccenter.org), housing the older Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where the Los Angeles Opera is based, and Ahmanson Theatre and Mark Taper Forum, where the Center Theatre Group stages its productions. It’s not uncommon for several performances to occur on the same afternoon or evening, and the central plaza and restaurants within the Music Center are crowded. Chef/owner Joachim Splichal’s upscale Patina (wdch.laphil.com/dining) at Disney Hall, which has late-night bar service, has received reviews calling it Los Angeles’ best new restaurant.

Not far from the Music Center and Disney Hall on Grand Avenue, in the mixed-use, 11.2-acre California Plaza center, is the Museum of Contemporary Art’s (moca.org) main building. Its Saturday-night summer outdoor parties with DJs in conjunction with nationally respected exhibits like “Basquiat” and “Robert Rauschenberg: Combines” draw thousands.

And a short walk away is an outdoor stage surrounded by fountains and other water features that serves as home to the Grand Performances (grandperformances.org) free concerts and outdoor films. It’s not uncommon for one of its events, such as a screening of An Inconvenient Truth with Al Gore present or a concert by Arlo Guthrie, to draw thousands.

Sports fans have taken well to the seven-year-old Staples Center (staplescenter.com) in downtown’s South Park area, home of professional basketball’s Lakers and Clippers and hockey’s Kings. Its owners this year broke ground on L.A. Live (aegworldwide.com/04_future/losangeles.html), a $2.5-billion development centered around Staples that will include hotels, condos, clubs, restaurants, theaters and even a new museum devoted to the Grammy awards.

Following the new residents, sports fans, culture lovers and tourists into downtown are restaurants both fancy and casual, like the recently opened Daily Grill, Roy’s, Pete’s Café and Bar, Pitfire Pizza Company and Wolfgang Puck Gourmet Express. There are also hip new bars like Golden Gopher and the Vegas-lounge-style Broadway Bar, both owned by a company called Two-One-Three that’s exclusively devoted to opening clubs in downtown. Later this year, it’s opening a bar called Seven Grand specializing in whiskey.

Getting There

LAX (lawa.org/lax), with eight terminals, is one of the world’s busiest airports. To get from LAX to downtown, the FlyAway (lawa.org/flyAwayInfo2) bus service to downtown’s Union Station takes less than 45 minutes in rush hour. From Union Station you can get a cab or subway to the central city.

Bob Hope Airport (bobhopeairport.com) in Burbank has nine on- and off-airport car rental companies, shuttles, hotel shuttles and taxis. An airport shuttle can take you from the curb to the nearby Amtrak station for connections to downtown.

Long Beach Airport (longbeach.gov/airport) handles four carriers, including jetBlue Airways, which is not at LAX. It is about 25 miles from downtown and has cab and shuttle service.

Not To Be Missed

Walt Disney Concert Hall (musiccenter.org)

The Jewelry District (lajd.net) 

Chinatown

Bradbury Building 

Museum of Contemporary Art’s (moca.org)

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