Los Angeles Design Festival is great. What a great way to spread awareness and have fun at the same…read moretime. Being in the design and architecture industry, I love attending events like these. Especially if they are free (but we gave a donation). The Sustainable Landscape Tour was a bit disorganized but overall a very fun, educational and new experience. The tour was 4 hours and it hit 4-5 parks where sustainable plants, trees, and shrubbery were used as well as different water conservation techniques. Here are some of the parks we hit: * Marsh Park - this was an adorable and pleasant surprise!! Who knew such a beautiful and serene park existed right along the bike path and along the LA River! It has many different pockets of areas (children, grass, pavilion that you can rent, exercise machines) which were all neat. Well kept by MRCA, it's a beautiful stop if you're biking along the LA River or just strolling through the neighborhood. Plus they have their own parking lot! * Elysian Valley Community Garden & Jardin del Rio Community Garden - we only got to go to the first one due to time constraints, but what a lovely piece of land for the neighborhood to use. We saw all sorts of veggies, fruits and plants being grown. From artichokes to corn, strawberries to kale and so much more. Very inspiring and of course, timely with the whole revolution Ron Finley has started. * Vista Hermosa Natural Park - how can I not know about this park? Lived in LA all my life and passed by 1st St. so many millions of times. Wow, this was truly a hidden gem. Gorgeous grounds, gorgeous views, just beautiful and peaceful. I definitely want to make another trip out to check out everything. People were picnicking, napping, there were photo shoots going on, kids were running around. You would never think you're in the middle of LA in this park. There's a children's area, grass knolls, clean bathrooms, lots of benches and tables, and a soccer field. The views of the LA skyline are just breathtaking. * Grand Park - we have been here before but never walked it in its entirety. There's so much planning that goes into an urban park, it's really amazing. I felt so educated on the process and the procedures these architects, landscape architects and city planners went through to create such beautiful, peaceful, green space for us. Very educational as well as a great time exploring LA and parts that I would have never discovered by myself. I hope LADF keeps up the great work!

Love this place..every year the line up of musicians are worth the wait…read more Yayayayayyayay

The Culver City Summer Music Festival is A LOT smaller when you compare it to the Santa Monica…read moreTwilight Dance Series. Both are free concerts that occur on Thursdays in the summer. I prefer the Santa Monica concert more, because it's at the pier. Or, you can also watch the concert on a megascreen on the beach! The Culver City concert is located at city hall. Minimal grass space. Mostly concrete for you to sit on. There is free parking underneath city hall. Or you can park at the nearby Culver City Garages for 2 hours free. We got there at 6:30, when the concert was scheduled to arrive at 7. There was no place to sit. Every inch was taken. There isn't too many places to stand either, without blocking the sea of people sitting down. Luckily we managed to find a tiny spot in between two groups near the stage. If you get there early enough, the city of Culver City puts out chairs right in front of the stage for people to sit on. (About.. 30-40?) I don't know if I would come back. It's nice. And parking was relatively painless. And the concerts in Culver City have better acoustics. I guess I would . . . if there was a good band playing that night. *Two thumbs up*

This was a super fun pop up experience…read more It was so informative about the history of Louis Vuitton. The iconic photos were amazing and so cool to see. To see the photos, stories and one of a kind items was such a unique experience Loved it!!

I am at a loss for words with regards to this exhibit. It was so mind blowingly awesome, unique,…read moreoutstanding, fantastic and superb! I just couldn't take it exclamation literally I went to the LV exhibit in Hollywood 3 years ago and that was amazing they outdid themselves this time! It was an incredible experience. I loved how there was just so many different exhibits there was also like the artisan part of the handcrafting of the handbags we learned about you know how it started and went through all of the iconic Louis Vuitton handbags custom made pieces, trunks, shoes, belts, scarves, it was just an amazing experience I will never forget I am so glad I went and if you have not gone you need to go! It is a MUST! A lot of people tend to think that buying an expensive handbag is about money. And yes you do have to have money to buy these pieces, however the reason why you're spending so much money is because of the process that is required to go through to get such an amazing handbag one that will last you 20+ years so it's awesome! Make sure you go and have a fully charged phone so that you can take a lot of pictures if Yelp would let me post more pictures I would have more to post...I had to pick the best out of 50 and I have about 400! bottom line is go see this!

THEY JUST CANCELLED THE 2017 Event which is a shame because I really liked the 2016 event…read more No word on refunds but let's hope for all those who bought tickets they will be coming soon.

I attended LA Weekly's Sips & Sweets for the first time this year at the Petersen Auto Museum, and…read morehad an amazing time. This event was very well planned and executed. The party was spread out over all 4 floors and there was a slammin' DJ on each floor keeping the atmosphere lively. The best part?! NO LINES!! Okay...maybe a couple of booths had lines but you could count them on one hand. The rest of the booths had no lines or lines that were a minute or two long. Signage was great too! Even the cleaning staff that was making sure everything stayed clean, were dancing while sweeping. Everything was free except for the savory food items - it is Sips & Sweets, after all, (desserts and cocktails) not a food festival. The savory items were on the top floor which was perfect after eating and drinking your way through 3 floors of desserts and cocktails. There was a wide variety of cocktails to sample - and they were decent size pours, too! The beautiful cars were works of art - they added to the cool awesomeness of the night. I attend plenty of food and wine festivals and this one ranks at the top of my list. I will definitely make this an annual tradition.

Overall still a fun event but this year with the location at LA Center Studio instead of Exposition…read morePark like last year there was less room to roam around freely, there also weren't any talking panels from local craft brewers like they had last year. The event this year felt more like a regular beer fest where you just move around & sample beer instead of getting to find out more about craft beer & local breweries in Los Angeles, part of it could be due to the fact that the LA Vegan Beer Fest in Pasadena held their event on the same day this year, & San Diego also had their beer fest on the same day so the Brewers may have been spread thin. Hopefully next year they go back to a larger venue, if not & this event is on the same day as the vegan beer fest I'd recommend going to the vegan beer fest. The venue is larger & the time of the event is longer (5 hours at the Vegan Beer fest compared to 3 at the LA Beer Week fest)

Let's get the bad out of the way up front. The bathroom to crowd ratio was way off. 8…read moreporta-potties for this beer event was not enough. Beer=pee. First visit wasn't so bad but at it's worst the line seemed 100 people deep. At this point my friend's idea to buy Starry Kitchen chicken wings in exchange for entry to the bar bathroom was a good one. Many people did this. You also need to train your workers to install the toilet paper in the porta-potties. Towards the end of the event there were rolls of paper on the floor & thrown about. The security did a fine job regulating the line & kept it moving later. Now for the good. It's an outdoor beer festival in L.A.! The Chinatown location was perfect since we were able to take the train. Although by the looks of the crowd, you may have already outgrown the space. The tickets with the tasting glass was a good idea. Although it was an unlimited tasting event, the tickets somehow psychologically made you pace yourself. Last years event had a few unfortunate casualties that we witnessed (Girls Gone Wild). We were first greeted by Andrew from Ohana pouring this year's Unity beer, a collaboration beer that he had a hand in. We found a bench to relax on, our base camp but they were few and far between. Perhaps more chairs & tables next time. There were 24 L.A. County Brewers Guild breweries & 25 breweries from abroad. Each of them were pouring between 2-6 types of beer. A lot to choose from. It's just not possible to try them all. Between my husband & friends, we were able to try quite a bit. A rinse station/dump bucket at every brewery would have been helpful. We were familiar with most of the breweries in attendance but I was happy to finally be able to try Pacific Plate Brewing Co.'s Horchata Stout. It didn't disappoint. My husband's favorites were the Craftsman Oktoberfest, Bootlegger's Brewery's Knuckle Sandwich & Smog City Brewing Co.'s "Wierd" beer. The local breweries that we visit on a regular basis are always on point but our livers can only take so much. After Beer Week is over we will need to go on a cleanse. The music and the food & beer panel was a nice addition. By the way, Ting, if you need any R & D volunteers for your food & beer pairings, I'm here for you. We will continue to support our local breweries & Craft Beer! Cheers!

Every year, around this time the Little Tokyo Service Center puts on an sake and food tasting…read moreevent. This year's theme was "The Science of Sake" held at the California Science Museum across from USC. This particular event was to honor Iron Chef Morimoto. Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet him.. but I got to taste some wonderful premium sake/beer and yummy food.. like fresh oysters on a half shell from Watergrill.. those things were literally the size of my palm. Maison Akira was there.. of course as well as other japanese restaurants... but the focus was on sake, which I now realize I don't know much about. They had a sake tasting contest which I enthusiastically agreed to participate hoping to win the grand prize of.. a bottle of sake. There were five different types of sake and we're told to take a sip of each one. But the contest host gave me full shots of each.. of which I obligingly drank in its entirety. (can't be rude now right?) Then he leads me to another table with trays of sake marked with numbers 1-5. "Now drink each one and mark down on this paper which one you think it is." Again these are like full on shots! (Ah ha! so this is their strategy...) After drinking mystery sake #3, I couldn't go on.. cause by then things were getting blurry and I knew i was starting to slur.... In the end, even getting one correct, I was left no prize, not even a consolation one.. just a hangover the next day. Good times.

One thing I love about Camp Flog Gnaw is how they prioritize accessibility needs. Each year there…read moreis a well staffed ADA tent as well as nonprofit tents like KultureCity and Camp Counselors who are able to support individuals with disabilities. The lineup is always fun and well stocked too, with plenty of big surprise guests.

I'm a little torn regarding Camp Flog Gnaw. I was super excited coming into this and I have to say…read morethat while I enjoyed it, I can't say I am set on returning. 1. Be prepared to walk A LOT. You enter through Expo/Vermont and you have about a 15-20 minute walk before you actually make it to the security checkpoint. They have winding barricades that are probably purposely put there to make you walk off your alcohol. Wow. I was not expecting this and really annoyed that it took so long just to get into the festival. If you had planned to see somebody perform and thought you could get in within 30 minutes, good luck. You may be sorely disappointed to miss out. 2. Security is either lax or strict, so it really depends on who you get. First day, the lady inspected EVERYTHING and even had the audacity to be suspicious about the wax for my braces. Wow. The second day, the dude did not even open all my pockets and let me walk through. Again, really depends. ID check is seriously, which explains a lot considering this is open to all ages. Had a dude in front of me get grilled about his zip code and that was because he had a fake. Homie, if you are going to have a fake, at least remember the info on that shit. 3. I do appreciate the ample stalls of food, beverages, and entertainment. It's a HUGE venue, so I would be pretty annoyed to walk around vast and far in search of food and beverages. Expect inflated prices, but nothing is really surprising. Expect to dish out $5 for a bottle of water unless you go to the vending machines outside the gates which do not take cash nor accepted my card, so wtf? And water is cheaper at $3 a bottle in the alcohol tents than outside. 4. The set list is what really got me. They had a lot of great artists, but staggered everybody good to be altogether on Saturday. That is annoying if you were trying to see all your favorites and would have to run from one stage to another. You had to make executive decisions as to which artist to skip. More often than not, I was thinking, man I should have gone to the other stage. Bummer. 5. But this is what gets me the most. THE CROWD. Maybe I'm a newb. But wow, this is a young young young crowd. If you are over 21, you felt old. Now I can hang with the young'ns, I can probably outdrink a number of them or have a better sober time than them, but holy shit, these kids were obnoxious and all probably drugged up or drunk out of their mind that their immaturity levels were through the roof. It was not worth standing and fighting a crowd of kids to the front of the stage. I'm used to people bum rushing the stage and get hyped when a special guest comes out, but these kids did not understand the definition of space and allowing one to breathe. Be careful before you get trampled or straight up die. Nobody will give a damn. 6. Take the metro to here. You will not regret it. After a whole day of walking and going hard, the last thing you are going to look forward to is walking hella blocks to get out of the Exposition area to be able to call a Uber/Lyft. Surge prices were also not the business. Better to take the metro and get out of the mess. Last train was past 1am on Saturday and 12:45am on Sunday night. 7. I needed to be really drunk to enjoy this and sure enough I spent more than I should have on alcohol here. I hate that you are restricted to consuming your alcoholic beverage in the designated beer garden areas. You were pretty limited here. I would skip this overall unless you're the type who likes to chill away from the stage and genuinely enjoy Odd Future. While I loved a number of the artists, some of the acts I felt weren't really conducive to the festival environment. Like The Internet would've done much better in an more intimate setting and the DJs weren't too successfully in hyping up the entire crowd.

I love this event, came here last year and had a blast. Came again this year and still had a blast…read more I think the prettiest people in Los Angeles come here and drink (Or is this the wine talking? ) Again, this year they had it at Majestic Halls. Yes that place. The same place where Usher shot his video of " DJ Got us falling in Love" http://www.majestichalls.com/EventVideos.html Great central venue. Because I had something to compare to last year, this is why I would give it 4 stars this year instead of 5. There seemed to be less vendors than last year-Sure I couldn't have drank "over 250 wines" in any given day but I loved the selection last year, including the place in redlands that did the ice slushies. It was refreshing, different, and was much needed to cleanse the pallet. I did wish we had something similar this year. There also seemed to be less "real food" for purchase than last year. This year, the grilled cheese truck was present as well as a "gourmet hot dog" inside the place. I'm wasn't a fan of either one so I opted to walk half mile to Nabeeya (Thanks James for the rec.) for a quick bite. I came back in time to have some sparkling that was in the front. The lines seemed more unorganized this year. Sure most people wait behind the booths but this year, for some reason it felt like people were "driving on the opposite side of the road". If there were lines on the left, I saw people coming from the right. This wasn't too bad because the lines moved rather quickly. The only time it mattered was when the people over the booth were edumacating the public , thus taking time away. The instagram #wineriot was a nice touch. But for private accounts and changing it to public just for a picture, it doesn't work as we waited over 2 hours for our picture. I saw some familiar faces here like Tara Taylor who was over at our favorite Spanish Wines. I saw Erica Nagashima over at #madriasangria . Of course got to chat with James a bit and met his friend Joy. Stopped by the Yelp booth to say HI. (BTW, thanks again @KTB! ) To Morgan, @Morgan1st, I saw you hustling around and I think you guys did a wonderful job.

Definitely the BEST Yelp Elite event I've attended so far (as of 7/22/14). Yes, the event took…read moreplace in May 2014, so it's a review long overdue. Better late than never ;) Brought my lovely +1 from San Diego, and we had a fucking blast. Unlimited wine for 4 hours? With amazing goat cheese (which I usually hate) on the house?! And to mention, short seminars on sake/wine? Met some great people, me and the girlfriend ended up having hot pot dinner with strangers turned friends. What better way to make friends than over unlimited wine & good vibes? Yeee. Plus, I LOVE the fact they had an app called "Second Glass" where you could rate the wine you just had based on stall#, so you won't forget what you enjoyed. I don't know too much about wines, so this was the perfect way for me to remember exactly what I liked, and what I didn't like. Thanks a bunch to Katie B. & Yelp for this AMAZING event! Hopefully I can go again next year :)