1986.09.20 - LA Street Scene Festival, Los Angeles, USA

September Fest

Street Scene to Offer Record Diversity in Food, Music, Art—and People

By BOB BAKER, Times Staff Writer

The Street Scene, Los Angeles’ annual two-day celebration of cultural diversity, will begin Saturday, offering a mix of textures ranging from the elegance of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra to the grit of blues singer Etta James, from the old-world charm of the Gypsy Flamenco Dance Company to the electric guitar insanity of the Ramones.

As many as 1.5 million people are expected to jam 14 blocks of the downtown Civic Center between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. A parade featuring 100 entries will be held at 10 a.m. Sunday.

The Street Scene’s traditional staples, music and food, will be in ample supply: 350 performances on 19 stages and 150 booths selling a wide variety of ethnic dishes. In addition, artists and craftspeople will sell handcrafted wares in another 150 booths.

The festival's boundaries, closed to auto traffic, are Aliso Street on the north, 1st Street on the south, Alameda Street on the east and Broadway on the west.

Sylvia Cunliffe, manager of the city’s General Services Department and producer of the festival, said her staff’s crowd estimate— which would represent a 50% increase in just two years—is based on “a tremendous response this year from vendors, performers and sponsors. We always have far more performers asking to be involved than we can accommodate, but this year it was even more than usual,” she said.

This year’s Street Scene is dedicated to two campaigns: The Save the Books Fund of the city’s main library, gutted by fire in April, and the Campaign for Child Survival, an international anti-poverty coalition.

With an eye toward maintaining civility amid the anticipated crowds, Street Scene officials say they have asked the Los Angeles Police Department to play a more visible role and have also tried to schedule the myriad acts at venues calculated to disperse visitors throughout the Civic Center.

In addition, organizers have added several new wrinkles to broaden the Street Scene’s audience beyond the hundreds of thousands of young rock music fans, who regard it as a major showcase for many of Southern California’s most popular club acts.

Fans of other types of music— classical, country-western, jazz and assorted forms of ethnic music—have scores of artists to choose from.

Among the first-time attractions:

■ A boxing match at 2 p.m. Saturday. Junior middleweight contender Johnny Sale will box his brother, Robbie Sale, in an exhibition.

■ A fireworks display patterned after a Mexican castillo, or castle-like creation. At 8 p.m. Saturday, a derrick-shaped structure on which various multicolored fountains, pin wheels, cascades and lances will be lit.

■ Performances by winners of the first Los Angeles International Music Festival, which was organized by the Street Scene and held earlier this week. Contestants from 15 countries were invited to Los Angeles, and the winners will be on stage Sunday.

■ A stage in the Civic Center Mall devoted to classical music and ethnic dance performers.

Tonight, Mayor Tom Bradley will host an invitation-only buffet dinner featuring entertainment coordinated by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers as part of the organization’s campaign to build opposition to licensing legislation in Congress. ASCAP contends that pending bills would allow broadcasters to pay one-time fees to performers instead of perpetual royalties.

The Street Scene is produced by the city’s General Services Department with a budget of about $700,000, most of it raised from corporate sponsors.