For one afternoon each fall, the blocks around 6th and Mesa streets in downtown San Pedro fill with marigolds, sugar skulls and the smell of food from street vendors. The San Pedro Día de los Muertos Festival is presented by Discover San Pedro, a nonprofit organization, and admission is free. The program includes altar displays, live entertainment, artisan crafts, food vendors and a Catrina costume contest.
The festival's live entertainment has been coordinated by the Grand Vision Foundation since 2012. According to Grand Vision, that programming is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which allowed it to hire high-quality regional performers and make the event a coordinated community festival that draws both locals and visitors from other Los Angeles communities and beyond. The San Pedro Historic Waterfront Business Improvement District (PBID) took the lead on the rest of the operation, from planning the layout and structure of the event to hiring the audio team, coordinating vendors and organizing the altar displays.
Music has been central to the festival's identity. Grand Vision describes a main stage that has hosted rock, pop, cumbia and mariachi bands, anchored by annual headliners Mariachi Divas, the two-time Grammy-winning all-female mariachi group that also serves as the official Disneyland mariachi band. Alongside the headliners, the foundation has curated a community stage for over a decade, building long relationships with folklórico groups including Grupo Folklórico Las Perlitas de Wilmington, Grupo Folklórico Nadino and Neiya Arts. More recently, the lineup has widened to include local acts such as Sharkbait from the Boys and Girls Club and dance and gymnastics schools like Dance Tech and Flipside Gymnastics.
The Catrina contest has grown into one of the festival's signature draws. La Catrina, the elegantly dressed skeleton of Día de los Muertos tradition, is the contest's inspiration, and organizers have framed the competition as an opportunity to embody the tradition rather than simply dress up. In 2024, Discover San Pedro billed the contest as the largest of its kind in California, open to all genders ages 18 to 99 and judged on creativity, design, beauty, authenticity and crowd response, with a grand prize sponsored by the LA Cruise Alliance: a Royal Caribbean cruise for 10 people. "This year, we are elevating our celebration with a contest that encourages participants to bring La Catrina to life in creative and meaningful ways," Ryan Blaney, executive director of Discover San Pedro, said in the announcement. "At its core, the event celebrates family, connection, and remembrance."
San Pedro's celebration is also part of a much larger regional moment, joining a broader wave of Día de los Muertos observances across Southern California. For a festival rooted in community altars and remembrance, the draw remains the same: a street full of people honoring family and tradition.