Rose Bowl Stadium

The Rose Bowl sits low in the Arroyo Seco on the west edge of Pasadena, with Brookside Golf Course to the north and the foothills of the San Gabriels rising behind it. It was finished in 1922 and is a National Historic Landmark. The stadium lists its capacity at 90,888, and on a sold-out night that's a lot of people sharing a few roads in and out.

UCLA plays its home football games here, the Rose Bowl Game owns New Year's Day, and the giant flea market fills the grounds on its own Sundays. Concerts slot in between. Big stadium tours stop here in the warmer months, and Goldenvoice has used the grounds for festival weekends, so the calendar below can be thin for weeks and then stack up in summer.

Plan the trip before you plan the outfit. There's no rail station at the gate. The closest Metro stop is Memorial Park on the A Line, roughly 2.4 miles away, and on event days you can walk it or buy a pass for the Rose Bowl Shuttle. Another shuttle runs from the Parsons lot in Old Town, and pickup spots for rideshare move from event to event, so read your event page the day before. If you drive, lot opening times vary by event and there's no leaving and coming back with your car.

The bag rule is the one people get wrong. A clear bag up to 12 x 6 x 12 inches, a one-gallon freezer bag or a small clutch gets in. Backpacks, mesh bags and fanny packs don't, and oversized bags go back to the car or to a check-in tent. Once you leave the stadium you can't come back in. The whole place is non-smoking, and outside alcohol and coolers stay outside.