Something is always about to happen here. Downtown Hermosa Beach and downtown Manhattan Beach each close their streets for a weekend and fill up with booths. Twenty-one thousand people walk pier to pier on a Sunday in October. Four hundred stationary bikes go up on The Strand for a day in May. There is a kite festival in March, a boat parade in December, and a 10K on Super Bowl Sunday morning.
Through the summer, free concert series run in Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, El Segundo and Hermosa Beach, most of them on a lawn or a pier. We keep the whole schedule on the South Bay concerts in the park page, including which nights have music and which do not.
This page is the year in one place. The biggest events come first, then the calendar month by month. Most of it is free, nearly all of it is outdoors, and if you are new to the South Bay it is the quickest way to work out what your neighbors are doing and when.
What are the biggest events of the year?
Thirteen, and between them they fill most of the weekends that bring visitors in from outside the South Bay. Five of them are benefit events, and several of the largest gatherings here raise money for schools and local causes.
The ones that take over a street, fill a pier or shut a road. Where an organizer publishes a headcount, the bar compares it against the Friendship Walk, the biggest of them.
These draw big crowds too, but their organizers do not publish a headcount.
Attendance and fundraising figures are as reported by each organizer. Several of these dates are set by a holiday weekend and move each year, so confirm before you plan around one.
What is on in the South Bay this month?
Most of the calendar clusters between Memorial Day and early October, with a second smaller cluster in December.
The year month by month, with what carries over from the month before. The Festival of the Kite in early March has its own section further down this page.
Dates move year to year. Every event below links to its organizer so you can confirm the current one.
Live MLS listings, updated through the day.
What are the South Bay’s signature benefit events?
We wrote more about these fundraisers in The South Bay Gives Back.
Several of the biggest nights on the calendar are school fundraisers. In Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, the education foundations raise money for their school districts, and their auctions and galas are fixtures of the spring calendar. You do not need a child in the district to go to any of them.
The Manhattan Wine Auction
The signature event of the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation. It started in 1993 as a small gathering of parents. The 31st annual auction, held May 30, 2025 at the Bay Club Manhattan Country Club, sold out at more than 2,400 guests and raised $1.4 million.
The format is more than 45 restaurants, roughly 80 wineries, breweries and distilleries, over 20 live auction lots and several hundred silent auction items. Proceeds go to the MBEF Endowment Fund, which in the 2024 to 2025 school year contributed $1.2 million, about 19 percent of MBEF’s total grant to the district.
Tickets sell out, so if you want to go, join the foundation’s mailing list in winter.
White Light White Night
The annual summer gala for Walk With Sally, a South Bay organization that provides peer mentoring to children whose families are facing cancer. It draws more than 1,000 guests, with live music and a long list of Los Angeles restaurants. Everyone wears white, which is where the name comes from.
It is typically held in August. The venue changes year to year, so check with the organization before planning around last year’s location.
Skechers Pier to Pier Friendship Walk
Every October, more than 21,000 people walk the 3.5 miles from the Manhattan Beach Pier south to the Hermosa Beach Pier and back. It has run since 2009 and has raised many millions across that span.
Proceeds are split between The Friendship Foundation, which runs one to one peer mentoring and recreational programs for children with disabilities, local public education, and the Skechers Foundation scholarship program.
If you live along the route, expect The Strand and the streets feeding it to be heavily affected that morning, and plan that Sunday around it.
Hearts of Hermosa
The Hermosa Beach Education Foundation’s annual gala. It began on February 14, 1996, when about 50 parents put on a Valentine’s dinner to raise money for the schools. That dinner became the foundation.
It now runs as an auction, dinner and dancing evening at Hermosa Vista School in the spring, with food, drinks and auction items donated by local restaurants, bars, businesses and parents.
What is the Festival of the Kite?
A free afternoon at the Redondo Beach Pier in early March, and it has been running for more than fifty years. It is presented by the Redondo Pier Association with the Sunshine Kite Company.
The format is simple: kites over the water, flying contests with prizes for categories like highest flying and best design, live music, and activities for children. Nothing is ticketed.
What is the BeachLife Festival?
A three day music festival on the Redondo Beach waterfront in early May, staged at Seaside Lagoon with the ocean behind the stages. It started in 2019, has a daily capacity of roughly 11,000 and books national headliners.
The stages face the water, the layout runs along the harbor, and the site is close enough to walk or ride to from the neighborhoods nearby. It also runs a separate food and drink program built around South Bay restaurants and breweries.
On festival weekends the Redondo waterfront parking structures fill, Harbor Drive and Catalina Avenue carry the traffic, and the sound carries across the harbor and up into the Hollywood Riviera on a clear evening. If you live nearby, either buy tickets or plan the weekend around it.
Some years also have a separate autumn edition, so check the organizer for every date.
What is the International Surf Festival?
A week of competition in late July and early August held in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Torrance.
Events are held at beaches in each of those cities over the course of the week.
What is the 6-Man?
The Charlie Saikley 6-Man Beach Volleyball Tournament, held on the south side of the Manhattan Beach pier in late July or early August.
Six players a side instead of the usual two, costumes, team names, and a crowd. It is a recreational tournament, and it is one of the busiest days of the year in Manhattan Beach.
Where are the free summer concerts?
Free series run through the summer in Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, El Segundo and Hermosa Beach.
- Redondo Beach Pier, Fisherman’s Wharf. Summer Concerts on the Pier, Thursdays and Saturdays 6pm to 8pm, July into late August.
- Manhattan Beach, Polliwog Park. Sundays 5pm to 7pm, running from early July to early September.
- Torrance Summer Nights. Selected Saturdays from June through mid September, mostly at the Wilson Park Amphitheater.
- El Segundo, Library Park. Concerts start at 4:30pm with food trucks from 4pm.
- Hermosa Beach. A short series south of the pier on the two Sundays following Labor Day weekend.
Bring a low chair. Most of these fill.
Where are the 4th of July fireworks?
Redondo Beach, over King Harbor, on the night of July 4.
Manhattan Beach does not have a Fourth of July fireworks show. It runs daytime events instead, including a pool party at Begg Pool.
Other South Bay cities including El Segundo, Torrance, Rancho Palos Verdes and San Pedro run their own Independence Day celebrations, and formats vary. Some have moved away from traditional fireworks in recent years, so check with the city before you go.
If you are choosing where to watch, start with King Harbor.
What is the Pumpkin Race?
A downtown Manhattan Beach event that has run for more than three decades.
Each October the City of Manhattan Beach closes part of downtown and turns the area near the pier into what it calls Pumpkin Race Land. Competitors fit wheels to pumpkins and race them down Manhattan Beach Boulevard. The 2026 race, the 36th annual, is on Sunday, October 18, which puts the first one around 1990. It is free, the festival starts at noon, and it runs as a day-long Downtown Halloween Festival with activities alongside the racing.
You can build a racer on the day, so you do not need to arrive with one.
It falls in the same month as the Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair, so early October and mid October are both busy weekends in that downtown. If you live nearby, plan parking around both.
The Pumpkin Race is one date on a much longer October calendar. The full list, with verified dates, times and locations, is on the Halloween in the South Bay page.
What happens in December?
Two free evening outings: a decorated boat parade in King Harbor and the Christmas lights in Sleepy Hollow.
The King Harbor Holiday Boat Parade sends decorated boats through the harbor under the theme Light up the Harbor, organized by the King Harbor Yacht Club. Free to watch from the shore, no boat or membership needed, typically a Saturday in mid December.
The Sleepy Hollow Christmas Lights in Torrance turn a residential neighborhood into a drive-through and walk-through display through December. Robert Road, Reese Road, Sharynne Lane and Doris Way carry most of it, reached from Pacific Coast Highway at Calle Mayor. Participation is voluntary and changes year to year.
For every 2026 date, from the Manhattan Beach Pier Lighting on November 18 to the Holiday Fireworks on December 13, see our Holidays in the South Bay guide.
When is the South Bay busiest?
Memorial Day weekend, the last week of July into the first week of August, and Labor Day weekend.
Those three windows carry Fiesta Hermosa twice, the Surf Festival and the 6-Man. If you are moving during one of them, plan the truck around it. If you are listing a property near a pier, plan the photography around it too.
If you are still deciding where to live, one of those weekends is a good time to visit and see the downtowns at their busiest.
Go deeper on these
Three parts of the calendar have enough going on to need their own page.
Live MLS listings, updated through the day.
Continue exploring
Compiled from city parks and recreation listings and event organizer announcements, verified September 15, 2026. Pumpkin Race organizer rechecked October 3, 2026 against the City of Manhattan Beach. The 2026 date comes from the Torrance visitors bureau, and the city’s own page still shows last year’s race. Dates move every year and some events change format or pause entirely. Confirm with the organizer or the city before making plans around any of these.
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