LA County Holiday Celebration to go without audience amid COVID uptick

With COVID-19 cases on the rise again, organizers of the 62nd annual L.A. County Holiday Celebration Monday announced the Christmas Eve event will go on without an audience this Friday.

Music Center officials cited “an abundance of caution given the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases.”

The Holiday Celebration is a free, non-ticketed event held at the The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It usually attracts upwards of 6,000 people.

“The Music Center continues to work closely with the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health and has developed strict protocols to help ensure the safety of the public, artists, crew and staff members,” organizers said.

“In this case, however, The Music Center determined the safest route to continue with this popular annual tradition would be to eliminate a live audience.”

Instead, the program will be broadcast live on PBS SoCal and stream on PBSSocal.org, KCET.org and holidaycelebration.org, as previously announced.

The announcement came one day after Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles canceled its invite-only audience event to celebrate Countdown to 2022 on New Years Eve.

That celebration will instead be produced as a broadcast-only event available on Fuse and on Grand Park’s YouTube channel beginning at 11 p.m., New Years Eve, according to Music Center spokeswoman Lisa Ducore.

Grand Park is operated by the Music Center. The change was made in consultation of the department of public health.