Plans being made for more concerts at Laguna Beach's Irvine Bowl

The Jack Johnson concerts, performed before capacity crowds during the Coast Film and Music Festival in November, may have marked the beginning of a new era of off- season use for the Irvine Bowl.

A 2, 600- seat amphitheater tucked into the canyon of the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park on the grounds of the Festival of Arts, the venue has long been home to the Pageant of the Masters.

Looking to ride the momentum of those performances, Coast Film and Music Festival co- founders Ben Warner and Enich Harris have revealed plans for three weekends of concerts at the Irvine Bowl this coming fall.

Advertisement Warner and Harris, both of whom are Laguna Beach residents, invited the community to a meeting at the Laguna Beach Community and Susi Q Center on June 8, where their vision was introduced as a "pilot program " in hopes of building a repeatable model for years to come.

The proposal calls for coastal country concerts to take place Sept. 19- 20, blues and jazz shows to coincide with the Laguna Plein Air Painters Assn. Invitational Oct. 3- 4, and three more nights of music at the venue, Oct. 23- 25, during the Coast Film and Music Festival.

G. Love and Jack Johnson, from left, acknowledge the audience during a concert at the Irvine Bowl in Laguna Beach on Nov. 8.

News Coast Film Festival, Jack Johnson bring live music back to Irvine Bowl The Coast Film and Music Festival included two sold- out shows, with Jack Johnson headlining, at the Irvine Bowl in Laguna Beach.

Nov. 19, 2025 Performing artists have yet to be announced. Warner said the series will be called Concerts in the Canyon.

"We 're packaging up these weekends as a pilot program and suggesting that we use these concerts as an opportunity to study sound, study programming, study feedback with the neighbors and the community, " Warner said. "We have a plan to, essentially, build a committee that would meet after every concert and take down all the data, from sound levels to complaint calls, if any, to feedback from anybody, ... really taking a measured approach to building a relationship with anybody around the Bowl and, ultimately, building best practices."

Plans also call for the availability of early ticket sales to locals, reserved seating, and a 10 p.m. curfew. A portion of ticket proceeds would be redirected toward improving infrastructure at the venue, Warner said.

The Pageant of the Masters performs its tableaux vivant production nightly between July 9 and Sept. 4 this year. The concert organizers would look to build a stage over the orchestra pit afterward and keep it up in between shows.

"With [the first ] show, we 'd build a stage, the sound and the lighting that, then, we would keep up for the next two months, ultimately building some economies of scale, " Warner said. "Because of the dynamics of the Bowl, we essentially have to build a stage that goes over the orchestra pit and also trusses to hold the sound and the lighting. It 's quite expensive, so by doing three concert weekends, we 're able to, of course, spread those costs out over three weekends."

Live music in the Irvine Bowl, Harris said, had been a "big dream " of the Coast Film and Music Festival co- founders, and while he described it as an "eight- year build " from the start of the festival in 2019, there has already been substantial interest shown from other organizations in using the city- owned venue during the off- season calendar.

"Opera Laguna has an interest in using the Bowl again and reviving opera in Laguna, " Christopher Reed, vice president of Opera Laguna, said at the meeting. "Opera singers like to sing loud, but without amplification, so I hope that we 'd be welcome to the neighbors."

In addition to unveiling plans for seven nights of concerts at the Irvine Bowl, last month 's community meeting solicited public input regarding neighborhood impacts, especially concerning sound mitigation for residents who live above the amphitheater.

Panelists included Drew Hester, the owner of MIP Event Productions, and Jeff Kinsey, a sound engineer and owner of Sound Better.

The 133 Band play the Irvine Bowl in 2014. The city will conduct a noise policy study in response to interest in offseason events at the venue, which is located inside the Festival of the Arts grounds in Laguna Beach.

News Laguna Beach to conduct noise policy study for Irvine Bowl Laguna Beach has seen growing interest in use of the Irvine Bowl for events during the offseason at the Festival of the Arts.

April 10, 2025 The dialogue with residents behind the Irvine Bowl became one of how the festival could be "good neighbors." Speakers described the community abutting the venue as "older, " while one said the Jack Johnson concerts went past the 10 p.m. cut- off suggested in a presentation at the meeting. The curfew for the Jack Johnson concerts had been 10 :30 p.m., Warner said, during which a sound test was conducted.

Concert organizers said they were exploring ways to mitigate sound, including pointing speakers downward toward the crowd and moving the soundboard from the back of the venue to the middle.

"I want to stand on your driveway and listen to what you 're hearing, and I 'm not joking, " said Hester, responding to comments that the spikes in sound were too loud. "... As an engineer, I 've done a ton of live sound. I am a drummer, too, but I want to hear what 's happening, because it 's crazy that it 's that loud up there."

Crowd control also came up as a concern, with one speaker saying, "People were all over the canyon smoking. Can you say 'brush fire ?'"

"As we move forward in the future, those are things that we want to do, not only crowd control up there, but actually anything that gets left, " Harris said. "I live in South Laguna. I know what it 's like when we have a holiday weekend and everyone comes and leaves their trash on our whole block. ...

"We really don 't want people up there in the bushes in the crowd. That 's not what we want, either. I think working together with you guys to make sure that we 're putting those kinds of things in place, I feel the same way. I don 't want people up there smoking, or drinking, or doing any of those things. That 's not what we 're trying to do."

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