Teen bands ran the stage at the Boyle Heights Youth Fest

The Boyle Heights Youth Fest filled a stretch of 1st Street in early June 2026 with free live music, community booths, food stalls and agua fresca, plus a meet-and-greet with the Lone Lobos podcast hosts and Cobra Kai actors Jacob Bertrand and Xolo Mariduena.

The festival was established by El Centro de Ayuda more than 20 years ago as a response to gang violence in the 1990s. It paused during the pandemic and has been rebuilding since 2021. The Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory now leads the organising. "It was a resource, a job fair if you will, so that children and youth in our communities could have an opportunity," said Angie Jimenez, who works with the conservatory.

Lead coordinator Adrian Salinas, a 23-year-old UCLA graduate, spent the day on a walkie-talkie working the length of the street, checking there was enough dry ice in the coolers to keep the chamoy popsicles solid. He pointed at a green space set aside for sustainability and environmental education groups as proof that the stereotype of a disengaged generation does not hold.

On the main stage, the Majorettes, a dance club out of the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, drew phones up across the crowd. Its 17-year-old captains Julian Dioulo and Meylay Archila said they were workshopping a new name, Pretty Pressure. Backstage, Vista Horizon, a K-pop quintet of elementary-age girls from Koreatown, waited to congratulate them.

Senolavie, a pop-punk trio from Lancaster, drove down in the early hours and worked through Blink-182 songs including Josie and All the Small Things. "We're playing music from an era before we were born," said 16-year-old guitarist Ian Abarca. "With our music, we can sort of communicate with others from that era."

City Plants, a programme funded by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, handed out free trees at a booth, and a rock climbing wall drew repeat customers. Other Los Angeles bills we are following sit in the festival tracker, including the KCON crowds at the convention centre and the Grand Performances season downtown, alongside our rock coverage.