Since its dedication 100 years ago, Los Angeles Central Library has survived demolition threats, major arson fires and earthquakes. This week, the historic site\u2019s halls will come alive as it celebrates its centennial with an after-hours festival that is quintessentially L.A. <\/p>\n
Dubbed Night at the Library, the four-hour extravaganza will feature more than 200 artists and 25 to 30 activations peppered throughout the library campus, plus DJ sets and local food truck fare. Highlighted performers include Bob Baker Marionette Theater and Los Angeles Master Chorale.<\/p>\n
While last year\u2019s inaugural event \u2014 hosted by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles (LFLA), the private nonprofit partner to the L.A. Public Library \u2014 drew a sold-out crowd of more than 3,000 attendees, this year\u2019s edition, A Century of Light, will welcome even more guests as part of LFLA\u2019s Centennial Celebration. The multi-year campaign, which has already raised $4 million of its $10 million goal, runs alongside the library\u2019s own Central 100 Celebration<\/a>, which kicked off in January. <\/p>\n As the foundation planned its centennial programming, President and Chief Executive Stacy Lieberman said, \u201cour board and our staff just started to think about how we can really use this as a vehicle to remind people that libraries are bigger than buildings and more than books, but really a place that supports Angelenos, that provides incredible opportunities for transformation and also just [is] a place for community and connection.\u201d<\/p>\n Lieberman, whose background is in cultural institutions, said that while price and proximity barriers keep many Angelenos from cultural and educational experiences, the library offers those things to everyone for free. Although Night at the Library is a paid, ticketed event<\/a>, Lieberman said it too aims to make those experiences more accessible for attendees. <\/p>\n Last year\u2019s Night at the Library drew thousands of guests after hours.<\/p>\n (Loreen Sarkis \/ Capture Imaging \/ Library Foundation of Los Angeles)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n The executive added that she and her colleagues were stunned by last year\u2019s turnout. <\/p>\n \u201cFor me, the magic was seeing people of all ages together in the building,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had people in their 70s poring over pop-up books and children\u2019s literature, and young 20-somethings enjoying BodyTraffic dance in the rotunda.\u201d <\/p>\n Attendance was so high, Lieberman continued, that it caused congestion issues that will be remedied by a reservation system, in which the event lineup will serve as a menu for guests to choose from rather than an itinerary. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s treated as a festival,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re given a map, and things are programmed several times throughout the night, so you can see most of it, but not everyone will get to do everything.\u201d <\/p>\n LFLA\u2019s senior director of programming and strategic engagement, Jessica Strand, said her curation method was to make the festival \u201cas diverse as it could possibly be: high, low, everything.\u201d <\/p>\n Bookstore pop-ups include the Ripped Bodice\u2019s romance, erotica wonderland and Reparations Club\u2019s highly curated arsenal; and performers range from the contemporary group Heidi Duckler Dance to a gospel choir. The idea is to evoke a \u201cbountiful, exciting, robust feeling,\u201d Strand said. <\/p>\n \u201cI do believe culture is for all, and that everyone should have the opportunity to see an opera, to watch an experimental artist do something really interesting and oddball and sort of swing your head around,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The evening setting was inspired in part by the popular Nights at the Museum, Strand said.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing into a place that\u2019s seen as sacred in so many ways to so many people, and seeing it come alive in a different way, it just makes everyone feel like a kid again,\u201d the curator said. <\/p>\n With the exception of \u201cConstructing a Los Angeles Icon,\u201d L.A. Public Library\u2019s Central 100 exhibitions<\/a> will remain open during the festival, enabling guests to learn about the history and significance of the campus. One exhibition space features a rarely shown oil painting which Central Library architect Bertram Goodhue commissioned to convince the library administration and board of commissioners to approve his eclectic building design. Another gives examples of what people proposed to do with the library after it was slated for demolition. <\/p>\n For Christina Rice, senior librarian of the library\u2019s photo collection, one highlight is an interactive installation based on an unadopted public art project proposal for a clock that would chime the Billboard top hits of the time, including Mariah Carey\u2019s \u201cDreamlover.\u201d Rice\u2019s 15-year-old daughter arranged and recorded the songs. <\/p>\n Dance performances, art and pop-up bookshops are all part of Night at the Library.<\/p>\n (Loreen Sarkis \/ Capture Imaging \/ Library Foundation of Los Angele)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n \u201cDoing the exhibitions, digging really deep, just made me appreciate that [the Central Library] got built to begin with,\u201d Rice said. \u201cSo that\u2019s something worth celebrating, that we have this incredible place that maybe shouldn\u2019t have existed in the first place, maybe shouldn\u2019t have stuck around, and yet it does.\u201d <\/p>\n Rice said she hopes the exhibitions and the library foundation\u2019s event ultimately \u201cget people back in the building.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cOur patronage definitely dropped because of the pandemic, and I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s ever completely recovered,\u201d the librarian said, adding that \u201cdowntown, in general, hasn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping events like Night at the Library get people to realize they have an incredible resource at their fingertips that maybe they didn\u2019t realize they had,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n General admission for Night at the Library is currently sold out, but additional $40 tickets will be released Saturday at midnight, the night before the event. $150 VIP tickets, which include access to an hourlong open bar and behind-the-scenes sections, are also still available.<\/p>\n LFLA\u2019s Centennial Celebration continues with an architecture program<\/a> in May, and an attempt to build the world\u2019s largest pop-up book<\/a> at the library in July. The library\u2019s grand Centennial Festival<\/a> is July 11. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since its dedication 100 years ago, Los Angeles Central Library has survived demolition threats, major arson fires and earthquakes. This week, the historic site\u2019s halls will come alive as it celebrates its centennial with an after-hours festival that is quintessentially L.A. Dubbed Night at the Library, the four-hour extravaganza will feature more than 200 artists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2392699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2392698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Library-Foundation-of-Los-Angeles-presents-after-hours-arts-festival.com2Fb52F822F1baf4d874880aca538392476.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2392698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2392700,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392698\/revisions\/2392700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2392699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2392698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2392698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2392698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Dance](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/ce7b16c\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2500x1666+0+0\/resize\/320x213!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6c%2F65%2F7cd1fd70467fac0e1c28ca637e38%2Fnatl-2025-2-loreen-sarkiscapture-imaging.jpg)
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