{"id":21419,"date":"2026-06-04T12:31:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/hollywood-bowl-but-by-the-water-long-beach-takes-a-first-step-with-temporary-amphitheater-los-angeles-times\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T12:31:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:31:45","slug":"hollywood-bowl-but-by-the-water-long-beach-takes-a-first-step-with-temporary-amphitheater-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/hollywood-bowl-but-by-the-water-long-beach-takes-a-first-step-with-temporary-amphitheater-los-angeles-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood Bowl but by the water? Long Beach takes a first step with temporary amphitheater – Los Angeles Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here<\/a>.
A waterfront amphitheater roughly twice the size of the Greek Theatre and two-thirds the size of the Hollywood Bowl is set to open this week in Long Beach \u2014 and there\u2019s a lot riding on its success.
City leaders hope F&M Bank Amphitheater of Long Beach, located next to the famed Queen Mary, will supplant declining revenues from oil extraction and lead to an uptick in tourism. Concert promoters, meanwhile, see it as filling an important gap in Southern California\u2019s music venue market.
The temporary amphitheater, which has a maximum capacity of 11,000, is meant to be a precursor to a permanent \u201cLong Beach Bowl,\u201d which is being pitched as the largest waterfront venue on the West Coast. The site opens June 6 with a performance by native son Snoop Dogg, and is expected to last for up to 10 years.
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Away from the cruise ship passengers and conventioneers, you\u2019ll find people passionate about their own unique corners of the LBC.
The new amphitheater represents a years-long dream of Mayor Rex Richardson, who began championing an outdoor performance venue on the waterfront in 2023. Soon after the closure of Irvine\u2019s FivePoint Amphitheatre in October of that year, he accelerated those plans by proposing this facility. The general feeling was that Irvine\u2019s loss could be Long Beach\u2019s gain.
\u201cThis will be a place where memories are made, where music brings people together and where our city shows up on the big stage,\u201d he said during a January groundbreaking. \u201cThe amphitheater represents direction to invest in our city\u2019s future, to embrace our creative economy [and] to shape how people experience Long Beach for generations to come.\u201d
While Los Angeles and Orange County have no shortage of cavernous indoor arenas, the region has recently lacked a proper \u201csummer shed\u201d capable of hosting many national amphitheater tours, said Nick Storch, head of global artist development for booking agency Independent Artist Group. Those tours typically play venues larger than the Greek, Irvine\u2019s Great Park Live or Costa Mesa\u2019s fairgrounds-adjacent Pacific Amphitheatre, but smaller than the Hollywood Bowl.
Such tours, Storch said, are of \u201cmassive\u201d importance to the concert industry. \u201cWith amphitheaters, it\u2019s not just the music \u2014 it\u2019s the experience of being outside and watching a concert, getting a bite to eat with your friends and all those kinds of things,\u201d said Storch, whose agency\u2019s clients Motley Crue and Five Finger Death Punch will perform at the F&M Bank Amphitheater in September.
\u201cFivePoint was a great venue to help artists that are in that in-between stage, and not fully ready for arenas,\u201d he said. \u201cLong Beach having an amphitheater is going to grow the market again.\u201d
Music<\/a>
Pacific Electric is an ambitious entry into a Los Angeles venue landscape recovering from economic woes, yet has seen jolts of life.
Amphitheaters are also crucial to veteran artists with established fan bases. The long-running hard rock band Tesla \u2014 who also will perform at the F&M Bank Amphitheater in September \u2014 has not played a show in Los Angeles or Orange counties since the closure of FivePoint, which hosted the group twice.
Brian Wheat, the band\u2019s bassist and manager, said he\u2019s excited the new venue will help change that. \u201cSheds are great in the summertime, and outdoor summer gigs always create a great atmosphere for both bands and fans,\u201d he said.
Much like the F&M Bank Amphitheater, FivePoint Amphitheatre was designed to serve as a temporary venue following the closure of Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, which operated from 1981 to 2016. (From 2000 to 2014, it was known as Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.)
From its opening in October 2017 until its closure, FivePoint hosted nearly 500 concerts, including artists such as KISS, Dave Matthews Band, Charlie Puth, Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs.
Venue operator Live Nation \u2014 which manages more than 300 facilities across the country \u2014 initially hoped to build a permanent amphitheater nearby, but scrapped those plans in 2023 after the Irvine City Council ended negotiations. Soon after, Live Nation announced the venue would shutter.
After learning of Live Nation\u2019s fallout with Irvine, Richardson and members of his economic development team attended the final FivePoint concert, a performance by the Zac Brown Band, to \u201cexplore the feasibility if we were to do the same thing.\u201d
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From the hospitality group behind the unapologetically glamorous Lafayette in San Diego\u2019s North Park, Baby Grand is ready to make a splash in stately Coronado.
Three months later, Richardson announced plans to build a temporary amphitheater in Long Beach to bridge the gap until a permanent facility \u2014 which he envisions as an \u201carchitecturally iconic and significant\u201d waterfront venue akin to San Diego\u2019s Rady Shell at Jacobs Park<\/u><\/a> \u2014 can be permitted, financed and constructed.
The site\u2019s location is central to its appeal, said Dan Hoffend, executive vice president of North American venues for Legends Global, the operator for F&M Bank Amphitheater. \u201cIf you sit in the very top row \u2014 what you would consider the worst seat in the house \u2014 it\u2019s a spectacular view,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Queen Mary is sitting there in all its glory. You\u2019re looking across the harbor. What would be perceived as the worst seat is actually the best seat because you see it all.\u201d
Tra Jones, general manager of the new amphitheater and a Long Beach native, said he\u2019s striving to make it feel less stopgap and utilitarian than FivePoint.
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a temporary feel at all,\u201d he said. \u201cWe looked at all our surroundings and said, \u2018What does this look like from a stylistic point of view?\u2019 We leaned into the port\/SteelCraft vibe \u2014 a very cool industrial look. When you walk in, you\u2019re experiencing a vibe. That\u2019s what we want to resonate with concertgoers coming here.\u201d
The word \u201cvibe\u201d also pops up frequently in conversation with Richardson. Under his watch, Long Beach recently started branding itself as \u201cVibe City,\u201d which he said is an attempt to encapsulate the charm of L.A. County\u2019s second-largest city, and the state\u2019s seventh-largest.
\u201cLong Beach is special, but it\u2019s hard to explain why if you haven\u2019t been here,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause you have to experience it for yourself, the best way to describe it is that it\u2019s a vibe.\u201d
Entertainment & Arts<\/a>
The Times rides along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic\u2019s newly minted music director, Daniel Harding, as the conductor takes in his new city. In-N-Out, the Hollywood Bowl and a Dodgers game with Gustavo Dudamel are on the busy itinerary.
Still, Richardson is aware that vibes can only go so far. During an April meeting with residents of downtown Long Beach, attendees were more interested in discussing homelessness and a recent uptick in traffic fatalities than how a new concert venue might add to the city\u2019s cultural cachet. Some downtown residents have circulated a petition regarding noise-related concerns.
\u201cThe job of the mayor is to meet the needs of your residents today \u2014 keeping a roof over your head, making sure it\u2019s safe to walk down the street, making sure you have access to amenities and services in your community \u2014 but also to think about the future,\u201d he said.
That means finding a way to offset revenues from oil extraction, which currently finance many municipal services, and are projected to drop from more than $50 million annually to around $21 million by 2035. According to Richardson, the new amphitheater \u2014 managed by Legends Global, but owned by the city \u2014 will help cover that shortfall. The venue is projected to be profitable within five years and generate nearly $29 million in revenue by 2036.
\u201cWe were fortunate that revenue from oil provided a lot of our services and built our beautiful waterfront, but as California moves away from oil production, we have to plan a more sustainable future by investing in what we know will be here in the long haul,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cIn order to do that, we have to invest in arts and culture and tourism.\u201d
Richardson is betting on music at a time when other cities \u2014 including Los Angeles \u2014 are doubling down on sports, warehousing or data centers. The amphitheater is also meant to remind the world of the city\u2019s impact on pop culture.
From War to Warren G and Sublime to Snoop, Long Beach has a rich musical history. The city hosted the first concerts by the Beach Boys and No Doubt, while Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Elvis Presley, the Eagles and Iron Maiden all graced the stage of the Long Beach Arena.
Music<\/a>
Built on community connection rather than blockbuster spectacle, the Redondo Beach festival deliberately avoids typical pain points like long lines and dusty lots to create a comfortable oceanfront gathering.
While that venue currently holds more conventions than concerts, Long Beach has hosted notable outdoor music festivals in recent years, including Warped Tour, Day Trip and Dreamstate. Richardson believes the success of those events helped prove the city\u2019s viability as a concert destination.
\u201cThis is the first step toward a legacy of leaving our city in a more economically resilient position,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cAt every big turn in our city\u2019s economy, we\u2019ve leaned on arts as a way forward, and this is no different.\u201d
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This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. A waterfront amphitheater roughly twice the size of the Greek Theatre and two-thirds the size of the Hollywood Bowl is set to open this week in Long Beach \u2014 and there\u2019s a lot riding on its success.City leaders hope F&M Bank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}