Los Angeles

Convention Center

About Us:

The World-Class Los Angeles Convention Center is one of the most efficiently designed and technologically advanced convention and exhibition facilities in the world.

Our trademark glass and steel pavilions, which house the exhibition halls, towers and lobbies are conveniently linked by a meeting room concourse forming a grand unified center. With a total of 720,000 square feet of exhibition and 147,000 square feet of meeting room space, the Los Angeles Convention Center provides a preeminent setting for any event.

The Los Angeles Convention Center is convenient to major points throughout the City.

Calendar of Events

Los Angeles Convention Center
1201 South Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, California 90015

Phone: (213)741-1151
Parking: $12.00 (No In/Out)
Parking and Traffic Information: Radio Station 1630 AM

The Los Angeles Convention Center is conveniently located at the intersection of the Santa Monica Freeway (10) and the Harbor Freeway (110).

WEST HALL PARKING DIRECTIONS & METRORAIL SERVICE Metro Rail Blue Line: The Metro Rail Blue Line connects with all Metro Rail and Metro Link lines at Union Station and stops on Flower at Pico (PICO STATION), directly across from the Los Angeles Convention Center. Metro Rail fares average $1.70 each way. To plan your trip, call 1-800-COMMUTE or visit http://www.mta.net/riding_metro/

Driving Directions:

From the South
From 110 NORTH, transition to the 10 WEST, and exit immediately from the LEFT lane to PICO Blvd. The PICO off-ramp becomes CHERRY St. Turn RIGHT into the West Hall parking garage.

Alternate from the South
From 110 NORTH, exit at 9th St. RIGHT on FLOWER St. RIGHT on 11th. LEFT on CHERRY St. LEFT into the West Hall parking garage.

From the North
From 110 SOUTH, exit at OLYMPIC Blvd. LEFT at bottom of ramp onto BLAINE. LEFT on 11th St. Immediate RIGHT on CHERRY St, and LEFT into the West Hall garage.

From the East
From 10 WEST, transition to the 110 NORTH (Downtown). EXIT at PICO Blvd. The PICO off-ramp becomes CHERRY St. Turn RIGHT into the West Hall parking garage.

From the West
From 10 EAST, exit at GRAND Ave. Turn LEFT on OLIVE St., and LEFT on PICO Blvd. Turn RIGHT on CHERRY St. and RIGHT into the West Hall parking garage.

Alternate from the West
From 10 EAST, transition to the 110 NORTH, exit at 9th St. RIGHT on FLOWER St. RIGHT on 11TH St. LEFT on CHERRY St. LEFT into the West Hall parking garage.

From the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Take the Century Boulevard exit to the Century Freeway (105) East. Take the Harbor Freeway (110) North to the Santa Monica Freeway (10) West. Exit at Pico Boulevard and proceed northward.

South Hall Parking: Turn right on Pico Boulevard, turn right on Figueroa Boulevard, turn right on Venice Boulevard, turn right on Convention Center Drive and proceed to the parking entrance.

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MAYOR RELEASES BUDGET PROPOSAL TO MAINTAIN SERVICES AND SAVE JOBS

The Mayor's balanced budget closes a $530 million deficit for the upcoming fiscal year, w hile maintaining police buildup and gang reductions efforts, and preventing as many as 2,800 layoffs.

Go to WWW.KeepLAWorking.COM to explore the City's budget options.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today released his Fiscal Year 2009-10 City budget which outlines his plan to save jobs and maintain city services.

"During these extraordinary times, it is the responsibility of all City leaders to recognize that reform is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity," Mayor Villaraigosa said. "The need for shared sacrifice is not just rhetoric; it is a reality."

Rising unemployment, the housing market crash and the credit crisis have caused City revenues to decline in nearly every category. The Mayor's proposal will balance a budget which faced a $530 million deficit in the upcoming fiscal year with a combination of spending reductions, private investment and efficiencies, including some departmental consolidations.

The Mayor proposed to maintain police buildup and gang reductions efforts while preventing as many as 2,800 layoffs through shared responsibility and sacrifice by all City employees. Layoffs of this magnitude would hit nearly every City department and would result in a dramatic reduction in City services.

The Mayor proposed an extensive menu of options, to be considered by the City Council, City employees and union leadership, which would prevent the need for layoffs and maintain a high level of City services by reducing the cost of the existing City workforce by more than 10 percent. The options the Mayor presented include unpaid holidays, and reforms to mileage reimbursement, healthcare coverage and overtime.

The Mayor also unveiled a new website -- KeepLAWorking.com -- for city employees to see the menu of options available to balance the City budget

Leading by example, the Mayor announced that he would cut his own salary by 12 percent, freeze his staff's wages and reduce his office budget by 10 percent.

This week, the Mayor will begin a series of meetings throughout the City to discuss the budget and how to keep LA working. On Thursday evening, April 22, Mayor Villaraigosa will hold an open town hall meeting in the West Valley at Providence Tarzana Medical Center. On Thursday, April 28, the Mayor will hold an open town hall meeting in South LA at the Epic Center. The Mayor will also hold meetings with City employees in the coming weeks.

On April 6, the Mayor said that the City could save 580 jobs if every City employee took off one unpaid hour of work per week. The City could save nearly 700 additional jobs if each employee contributed 2 percent more to their retirement benefits. And if every employee agreed to defer scheduled pay raises, the City could save an additional 1,300 jobs and the services they deliver.

The Mayor's proposed Fiscal Year 2009-10 budget is available at mayor.lacity.org.

The City Council will begin deliberations on the Mayor's proposal in early May. The final budget must be adopted by June 12.

Water-view Ballpark? If all of the woven straw hats worn by Silver Lake hipsters has you down, imagine what the area would be like with a few thousand people wearing lids with the interlocking “L” and “A” about 80 times a year. That's right, Silver Lake was once proposed as a possible site for Dodger Stadium (1000 Elysian Park Ave., Los Angeles, 323.224.1500). The Garbutt-Hathaway Estate, located on the hill just southeast of the reservoir, was one of four possible locations a 1956 city report pitched as possible sites for a future home field for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers (the LA Coliseum, old Wrigley Field in South Los Angeles and Chavez Ravine were the others). Alas, the Dodgers moved to the Coliseum in 1958, with their more permanent home built in Chavez Ravine four years later. Experience it yourself – the 2011 season opens at Dodger Stadium on March 31.

Mystical Muse What do the Beatles “Blue Jay Way,” Crosby Stills & Nash's “Our House,” and the Doors' “Love Street” all have in common? All were written about locations in the Hollywood Hills. The George Harrison gem references one of the so-called “bird streets” (Warbler Way, Oriole Drive, Skylark Lane, Mockingbird Place etc.) that wind their way through the hills above West Hollywood. Graham Nash wrote “Our House” about the Laurel Canyon abode he shared at the time with the girlfriend Joni Mitchell, while the Jim Morrison-penned “Love Street” referenced the Laurel Canyon hippie scene of the late 1960s. Fortunately, spring and summer provide an opportunity to experience two of the country's best outdoor music venues right nearby. The Hollywood Bowl 's (Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, 323.850.2000) 2011 season includes concerts by Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks, Wynton Marsalis and Hall & Oates. And a few miles east, the Greek Theatre ( 2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, 323.665.5857) hosts shows with Adele, Sugarland and Death Cab for Cutie.

San Pedro Spa Treatment Housing one of the largest U.S. commercial ports, San Pedro isn't exactly synonymous with spa treatment, but that's what folks could get during the early part of the last century. Between 1917 and the late 1930s, White Point Hot Spring Hotel was located at the current site of Royal Palms County Beach. The resort included a hotel, restaurant, boating area and salt-water pools as well as access to a sulfur hot spring, and was especially popular to Japanese-Americans. By the late ‘30s, though, an earthquake that cut off access to the hot spring and the Great Depression hastened the resort's demise. Today, people can go to witness a different type of – er— stress release by heading to San Pedro's Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (3720 Stephen M. White Dr., San Pedro, 310.548.7562) to watch the grunion spawn. Open season is in March, June and July, when people can hold the silvery fish over the nighttime sand.

‘Long' Story Short Speaking of ports, if you go back about a century, “Port Los Angeles” (no “of”) meant the Santa Monica Bay, not San Pedro or Long Beach. Starting in the 1890s, Southern Pacific railroad magnate Colis Huntington, whose tracks ran between Downtown and Santa Monica and up the coast, started funneling money towards making Santa Monica Bay the primary shipping harbor for the region, and in 1893 built the Long Wharf just north of Santa Monica Canyon. The world's longest wooden pier measured more than 4,700 feet, or almost three times the length of Santa Monica Pier. Four years after being built, however, the city deemed San Pedro its official harbor, and the Long Wharf was eventually dismantled by 1921. Today, Will Rogers State Beach (17700 Pacific Coast Highway, Los Angeles, 310.305.9503) offers almost two miles of sand, volleyball courts, bike paths and surf where the Long Wharf once jutted out almost a mile into the ocean. And the boats in the distance tend to be a little smaller.

Royal Blues An LA native by way of South America and San Diego? So go the travels of the jacaranda tree, those bright blue-purple-sprouting trees synonymous with Los Angeles that wow visitors but annoy garden keepers with their sticky leave-droppings. While often associated with spring in Los Angeles, jacaranda seeds were actually first brought to the U.S. from South America by turn-of-the-20th-Century horticulturist Kate Sessions, who planted the trees, along with about a half-dozen other tree species, all over San Diego's Balboa Park. Curious about more flora? Descanso Gardens (1418 Descanso Dr., La Canada-Flintridge, 818.949.4200), in La Canada-Flintridge, is a 160-acre urban oasis complete with a camellia oak forest, streams, a lake, bird sanctuary, five-acre International Rosarium and tons of colorful flower displays, not to mention a mini-train route for the kids.

Extended Play Warner Bros.' “The Jazz Singer,” credited for being the first film with synchronized sound and the first “talkie” (both claims have been disputed), may have been about a Rabbi's son trying to hit it big on Broadway, but the 1927 release is a quintessentially Los Angeles movie, from its filming locations at Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth to its world premier at Downtown's Tower Theater. Heck, even star Al Jolson made sure his fans kept it a local affair by being buried at Hillside Memorial Park near Culver City. On a more uplifting note, Warner Bros. Studios (3400 Riverside Dr., Burbank) is giving film buffs an extra chance to soak up its film history by adding a sixth day to its VIP Studio Tour in Burbank and opening each Saturday through the summer. Folks can call 877-4WB-TOUR for more information.

Posh Ride No one would question the insanely high value of real estate that runs along the south side of Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, whose stretch includes the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire Hotel (9500 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, 800.427.4354) mixed in with lots of posh shops and offices. Which makes it hard to fathom that the first thing built along that stretch was a racecar track. The Beverly Hills Speedway was a one-mile oval wooden-board track that held 250-mile auto races starting in 1920, though was dismantled four years later once the local business community discovered the wonders of triple-net rent. That said, about three miles east, racecar junkies will be easily sated at the Petersen Automotive Museum (6060 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, 323.930.CARS), which has more than 150 rare and classic cars, trucks, motorcycles and other things on wheels cover four floors and more than 300,000 square feet of space.

Golden Voice Local baseball fans will often associate Gene Autry with the Angels, as the “Singing Cowboy” owned the team from its 1961 inaugural season until a year before his death in 1998, but Autry didn't initially intend to own a baseball team. The entertainer was actually bidding for radio-broadcasting rights for expansion team that was awarded to Los Angeles in the late 1950s, but was talked into owning the team, which played in South Los Angeles' Wrigley Field in 1961 and Dodger Stadium from 1962-65 before moving to Orange County. Autry's legacy lives on at Griffith Park's Autry National Center (4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, 323.667.2000), which includes more than half a million pieces of art and artifacts related to the American West and American Indian culture as well as ongoing programs for history buffs and kids alike.

Musical Chairs Like the Oscars and Emmys, the GRAMMY Awards take place once a year at a single Los Angeles location, but that wasn't always the case. From its inaugural 1959 ceremony until 1970, the GRAMMYs were given out each year in multiple awards ceremonies that took place in cities like New York, Chicago and Nashville, in addition to Los Angeles. Starting with the 1971 event at the Hollywood Palladium, though, the GRAMMYs went to the single-ceremony format it uses today. Music buffs looking for a heavy-duty primer on the GRAMMYs should check out the GRAMMY Museum at L.A. LIVE (800 Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, 213.763.2167), which includes four floors and more than 30,000 square feet of interactive exhibits that give a full history of rock, R&B, country, and hip-hop music, among other genres.

Center of Attention Those who grew up knowing Los Angeles as a group of suburbs and district with no residential center will have to update their thinking, as the dozens of older downtown buildings that have been converted and upgraded to apartments and condos now house one of LA's larger communities. In fact, more than 50,000 people live in Downtown, up from about 35,000 a decade ago, making Downtown more populous than Silver Lake and Los Feliz, and about as big as San Pedro and Encino, according to LAObserved. It's a good thing Grand Central Market (317 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, 213.624.9496) has been there for hungry downtown residents and visitors for the better part of the past century. Opened in 1917, the Grand Central Market houses dozens of food, beverage and produce stalls reflect LA's melting pot of cultures better than any guidebook can.