If you live in SoCal, you probably know someone who has camped out all night in Pasadena to be on the spot New Year's Day for the Rose Parade. And if you have kids, you're probably not willing to do that yourself. But there are all sorts of ways to enjoy the Rose Parade without pitching a tent on the sidewalk. Some of these ways may even more fun than the parade itself, which many of us feel is best watched in PJs under a blanket on the sofa.

Love watching the horses? Check out Equestfest. Have a soft spot for marching bands? Bandfest is for you. And if you are intrigued by all of these enormous masterpieces made entirely out of flowers, seeds, and leaves, then the Post Parade Showcase of Floats could be a more satisfying experience than the parade itself. One thing is for sure: any of these belongs on a bucket list of things to do before your Angeleno kid grows up.

It's a match made under the big top: If ever two creative forces were meant for each other, Cirque du Soleil and Steampunk must be the two—and KURIOS is the show that brings them together. All top hats, goggles, and time-traveling trampolines, the so-much-more-than circus comes swinging and spinning into DTLA to play its first engagement at Dodger Stadium. KURIOS is as memorable and innovative as we have come to expect from the Canadian troupe, and then some. Having seen a few Cirque productions before, I admit I didn't necessarily expect that we could be astonished again; I was looking forward to seeing the show, of course, and reporting on its family-friendly factor, but I figured there are only so many ways to bend, hang, and flip in fancy outfits. As it turns out, I was wrong; there is an infinite number of ways, and Cirque du Soleil never gets tired of finding them.

This post is from 2015. For current info see our 2016 post.

There are many levels of pumpkin carving. There's picking up a pumpkin at the grocery store and jabbing it with a knife until is makes a crooked smile. There's downloading a stencil and spending an afternoon with a $5 carving kit turning your pumpkin patch purchase into Jack Skellington. And then there's taking 5,000 fresh pumpkins per week and carving them into multi-gourd masterpieces never before conceived out of fruit. That last thing is what you'd call Rise of the Jack O'Lanterns.

The Rise, as those in the know call it, has been a popular Halloween event near NYC, on Long Island, for years; SoCal got its first peek at the hard-to-describe pumpkin phenomenon last year, when it moved into Descanso Gardens. This year The Rise is at two LA locations (adding the Santa Anita Race Track), as well as the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. And it is pretty darn different from any other Halloween event I've seen.