By Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

When it comes to making travel plans for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, you may still be crouched at the starting blocks. But the race for flights, hotel reservations and event tickets will begin in 2026, long before the Games commence.

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If you’re planning to visit Southern California for LA28, preparation will be crucial. And a little positive thinking wouldn’t hurt. As Winnipeg-based sports tour operator Dave Guenther of Roadtrips says, the Olympic cycle often feels like “two or three years of cynicism followed by two weeks of unbridled joy.”

As the days tick down to the L.A. Olympics (July 14-30, 2028) and Paralympics (Aug. 15-27, 2008), we’ll be answering the most important travel questions. We’ll be adding updates as new information comes in, so be sure to bookmark this guide.

Getting tickets to the Games

When will tickets for the Olympic Games go on sale?

Beginning in January, fans can register to enter the lottery for Olympic tickets at the organizing committee’s website, la28.org. If selected in the random draw, organizers say, fans will receive a purchase time and date for when ticket drops begin in spring 2026. Organizers say those in communities near Games venues will get early access. See a broader outline of LA28’s ticket schedule here.

Also in early 2026, LA28 will start offering hospitality packages that combine event tickets with overnight accommodations, transportation and/or special events. Tickets for the Paralympic Games will go on sale in 2027.

More details are expected later this year. Anyone interested can sign up to receive announcements through the LA28 newsletter.

What will tickets cost?

Organizers say Olympic and Paralympic competition tickets will start at $28, about $2 more than they did in Paris in 2024. We don’t know the high end yet. If Paris is a fair guide, most-coveted seats for the most popular events could be as high as $800 or more. The official vendors are also expected to manage a channel for resales of tickets, as they did in Paris.

The two most costly events are likely to be the opening and closing ceremonies. In Paris, per-ticket prices reached more than $2,900 for the opening, and more than $1,700 for the closing. In Los Angeles — for the first time — the opening ceremonies will be split between two venues, the L.A. Coliseum and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Some of the toughest tickets, Guenther said, are gymnastics, swimming, track and field, and beach volleyball. “If you are super keen on seeing the women’s gymnastics finals, you might be on a path to disappointment,” Guenther said. “But if you’re flexible, there are a lot of things that are going to be options.”

Can I volunteer at the Games?

You can try. Recent Summer Olympics have relied upon tens of thousands of volunteers, who must meet language and training requirements. (Not every aspiring volunteer in Paris got assigned.) To stay in touch with volunteer opportunities, sign up for the LA28 newsletter.

Where will the Games happen?

The 2028 festivities will include 36 Olympic sports and 23 Paralympic sports, spread over about 40 venues. The lion’s share of Olympic events will take place in downtown L.A. and Exposition Park (which together have 10 venues); Long Beach (seven venues); Carson; Inglewood; the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

But events are also scheduled in San Clemente, Venice, Anaheim, Pacific Palisades, Pomona and the City of Industry. The Paralympics will use many of the same venues. Indeed, this could be a learning experience for out-of-towners who don’t realize just how broadly Greater Los Angeles sprawls.

The softball and canoe slalom events will be held in Oklahoma City.

Flights, hotels and Airbnbs

How far ahead can I book flights?

Most airlines usually start accepting bookings 330 days (or 11 months) before the flight date. At Southwest Airlines, lead time can be eight to 10 months.

How far ahead can I book a hotel?

Ordinarily, hotels start accepting bookings 365 days ahead, so if you’re just looking for a room (and not a ticket-and-hotel package), set a reminder for around July 2027. Many hotels in Greater Los Angeles — especially those unaffiliated with global brands — are likely to follow their usual timetables. If you’re interested in a hotel-ticket combo deal, those will be offered in early 2026, as previously mentioned.

Industry veterans say most major hotels around Los Angeles have probably already made deals allotting blocks of 2028 rooms to organizers of the Games or independent tour operators like Roadtrips. For example, the Queen Mary in Long Beach already has 300 rooms and suites under contract with LA28, according to managing director Steve Caloca.

Another opportunity may arise even later: Typically, organizers and tour operators often return unsold room-nights to hotel control 60 or 90 days ahead of the event, which may give consumers a chance to book those “leftovers” directly, perhaps at a lower cost.

What will hotel rooms cost?

Nothing boosts hotel prices like the Olympics, and experts say the most luxurious hotels tend to hike their prices the most. Analyzing figures from Paris, hotel industry consultants CoStar found that average hotel rates — $342-$393 in the summer of 2023 — more than doubled to $731-$939 for the 2024 Games.

L.A.’s starting hotel rates are lower than those in Paris were. CoStar found that average daily hotel rates for greater L.A. from July 14-30, 2024, were $193-$231.

What about short-term rentals?

Again, expect prices to soar. Airbnb reported a 40% jump in accommodations inventory and a 400% jump in Paris-area bookings during the 2024 Games. On the eve of the Games, property management website Hostify.com reported that asking prices for short-term rentals in Paris had quintupled from $154 nightly to $772.

Do note that at every Games, it seems, there are reports of astronomical prices, followed by later reports of 11th-hour discounts because some people got too greedy earlier on.

Los Angeles seems to be starting out with higher short-term rental rates than those in Paris. The vacation rental website Airroi.com estimates the average Airbnb rate in greater Los Angeles for the year ended August 2025 was $283.

But of course, you can spend plenty more. One broker told The Times he has already rented out an L.A. mansion for $300,000 a month in 2028.

How far ahead can I book a short-term rental?

Airbnb allows bookings up to two years in advance, which is also VRBO’s default setting.

Will tensions between major L.A. hotels and union workers surface during the Olympics?

Hard to say. The L.A. City Council in May approved a measure requiring many hotels to raise their minimum wage to $30 hourly by July 2028. A business group started a petition drive seeking to undo the measure but fell short earlier this month.

Could President Trump’s immigration policies affect the Games?

That’s anybody’s guess. Heads of state in host countries usually play a ceremonial role, standing mostly in the background. Trump may have other ideas. In early August, he announced that he would chair a task force in charge of Olympic safety, border security and transportation.

Some foreign sports fans might stay away to signal opposition to the Trump Administration, as many Canadian travelers have been doing this year. But domestic travelers, not foreign visitors, fill most seats at the Olympics. Paris tourism statistics show U.S. visitors to that city during the 2024 “Olympic fortnight” were up a relatively modest 13% over the previous year.

Why do people go through so much trouble to see the Games?

“There is a tremendous magic,” Guenther said. “It really is quite something how people enjoy the time together with people from all over the world. … You find yourself welling up for an athlete in a sport you’ve never thought about.”

(Times staff writer Thuc Nhi Nguyen contributed to this report.)

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

If you ask me, there’s nothing more fun than a theme party, especially if costumes are involved.

There really are no downsides to dressing as the Cookie Monster for Halloween. (Denver Post file)

I enjoy finding decorations, cooking themed food, pouring creative cocktails, making playlists and sending friends home with little trinkets. Plus, the theme is an immediate ice-breaker for guests, who may be meeting each other for the first time or who just want to whisper about how quirky my household is (which is fine) as they study the decor.

My theme parties over the years have included the moon landing, Woodstock, Halloween monsters, a come-as-your-high-school-self birthday, a Scholastic book fair for adults and a Christmas cookie party.

Lisa Geiser, owner of Eclectic Elegance Events in Denver, agrees that theme parties do not have to be expensive or super fancy.

“I tell people don’t worry about trends,” Geisler said. “Just get creative and just do you, not caring what people think.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Let’s jump into some tips on how to organize your theme party.

Step 1: Pick your theme

This is the most important thing, so let’s get it right.

Search inside yourself and decide what you like. This is your party, after all, and you should tailor it to your interests. Do that, and the authenticity will shine through. Your guests will love it.

Geisler recommends watching movies or searching the internet for videos and pictures from international holiday celebrations to find ideas.

“Google is your best friend to kind of see what people are doing,” Geisler said.

I love vintage stuff and childhood nostalgia. A quick and easy theme is to pick your birth year and start from there. What movies and TV shows were popular? What music were people listening to? What were they eating?

I once hosted a 1969-themed birthday and asked people to roll with it. My parents came as their younger selves — my mom wore a long blonde wig and shoved a pillow under her shirt to appear pregnant and my dad wore a white T-shirt and Madras plaid shorts like a pair he was photographed wearing while holding me as an infant. He handed out pink bubblegum cigars to the guests.

My husband bought a Cookie Monster costume because that is the year the lovable Cookie arrived on Sesame Street. I dressed as Janis Joplin.

(In the spring, I hosted a Scholastic Book Fair for adults for my best friend’s birthday since we both associate those days at school with joy. As my friend explains, it’s fun to think of things you enjoyed as a child and then spend your “grownup money” on them. We thrifted books for our guests to shop, let them decorate tote bags, gave away bookmarks and cute pens and pencils, decorated with old vintage paperbacks and held a spelling bee. People are still talking about the party six months later.)

For Halloween, I love the classic monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman. It’s easy to build a party from there.

At Christmas, I go with vintage holiday decor. That could be paired with a jazz-themed party or a 1950s cocktail night.

Step 2: Set your budget

The economy is tough, and no one should go broke over a party. Make your only regret a little bit of a hangover, not a zero balance in your checking account.

Decide what the top three to five priorities will be at your party. Killer cocktails? Beautiful floral arrangements? A fancy cake? Goodie bags?

Planning is key here. If you pick your theme early, then you have time to shop at thrift stores, flea markets and sale racks at Target, Walmart and Michael’s. Save money on decorations, costumes or snacks and shift that spending to the things you value most at a party, whether that’s an expensive bottle of bourbon or a new outfit.

Step 3: Send the invitations

The holiday calendars fill up fast. So avoid those “regrets” responses by locking in the date early.

Steal a tactic from wedding planners and send save-the-date invitations.

Step 4: Plan the menu

There is no shame in making box brownies for a party. People love ’em. (Lynda Balslev, Media News Group)

I’m Southern, and the biggest party foul for me would be running out of food. My guests simply cannot go hungry, and it’s even better if I can pack to-go boxes for them when they leave

I’ve learned that RSVPs can be unreliable, so I think of dishes that can stretch on a budget. For example, for a brunch I might make a grits casserole but I will have more on hand that I can whip up on the fly. Chips and salsa never fail. Pans of Duncan Hines brownies always please the crowd and are quick and inexpensive. And for a cute, sweet cheat, buy a box of Little Debbie Swiss cake rolls, cut them into pieces and artfully arrange the rounds on a holiday platter.

Step 5: Decorate early

I start decorating the weekend before the party. I prefer to save my energy for the actual party. Plus, if the decorations are cool, it’s fun to have a festive house for longer than a weekend.

Put up decorations first in the least-used parts of the house. The kitchen and dining area would be last because you know you’re going to make a mess in that room almost every day. But the garland on the mantle or lights on the front porch can go up early.

Step 6: Leave time for yourself

Make sure you give yourself time to look cute when guests arrive. It’s stressful to just be getting out of the shower 30 minutes before the first people arrive.

Step 7: Don’t be afraid to ask for help

If someone texts the day of the party and asks if you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask for that extra bag of ice or bottle of wine.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is taking a pause on Thursday as U.S. stocks and even the price of gold make only modest moves near their record highs.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, coming off its latest all-time high and its eighth gain in the last nine days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 126 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.

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Gold also crept back from its latest record following a stellar rally this year, while Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. They’re taking a moment following big runs driven in large part by expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates to support the economy.

Delta Air Lines flew 6.5% higher after reporting a stronger profit for the summer than analysts expected. The Atlanta-based carrier also gave a forecast for profit over the full year that topped analysts’ estimates.

Delta President Glen Hauenstein said it’s seen a broad-based acceleration in sales trends over the last six weeks, including for business travel domestically. That helped lift stocks of other airlines. United Airlines climbed 4%, American Airlines rose 2.2% and Southwest Airlines gained 1.8%.

Such reports from companies are taking on more significance, offering windows into the strength of the economy. That’s because the U.S. government’s shutdown is delaying reports that would clearly show how the overall economy is doing. This is the second week where the U.S. government has not published its update on unemployment claims, for example, a report that usually guides Wall Street’s trading each Thursday.

Companies will also need to deliver big profit growth to justify the tremendous gains their stock prices have made since a low in April. The S&P 500 has soared roughly 35%, which has left it looking more expensive than usual, relative to corporate profits. Concerns are particularly high about the frenzy lifting stocks related to artificial-intelligence technology.

PepsiCo added 0.3% after it delivered a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It said momentum improved for its drinks business in North America.

On the losing side of Wall Street was Tesla, which fell 1.8%. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary evaluation of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system due to safety concerns.

Akero Therapeutics leaped 16.6% after Novo Nordisk, the Danish maker of weight-loss drug Wegovy, said it would buy the South San Francisco-based drug developer. The price tag could reach $5.2 billion if Akero’s lead product candidate wins federal regulatory approval.

MP Materials, a company that mines and processes rare earths in California, climbed 5.1% after China announced curbs on its exports of the materials, which are critical for the making of everything from consumer electronics to jet engines.

Costco Wholesale added 2.4% after the retailer said its revenue rose 8% in October from a year earlier.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Stocks in Shanghai leaped 1.3% after trading resumed following a holiday.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.8% for another one of the world’s bigger moves. Technology giant SoftBank Group surged 11.4% after it announced a $5.4 billion deal to acquire the robotics unit of Swiss engineering firm ABB.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.14% from 4.13% late Wednesday.

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

Pumpkin spice latte season began at a well-known coffee chain in late August. Thanks to the phenomenon known as pumpkin creep — the earlier and earlier arrival of pumpkin-flavored beverages each year — pumpkin beer season starts earlier now too. But that’s not a bad thing: beers made with pumpkin, and more often pumpkin spice, are already on store shelves and will be hanging around through Thanksgiving or until they run out.

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Like the saying, “everything old is new again,” pumpkin beer has a much longer history than many people realize. Modern versions of pumpkin beer were first brewed in the mid-1980s, but the style goes back to colonial America, out of necessity. When early colonists first arrived in New England, they discovered that barley didn’t grow very well, and they looked around for an alternative fermentable substitute. Some of the crops that Native Americans taught the settlers to grow were corn and pumpkins, which were grown together to more efficiently use farm space. Since beer was safer to drink than water, they couldn’t be too picky, so they started making beer with pumpkins, as well as other locally grown ingredients, like artichokes, parsnips, persimmons, spruce tips and molasses. How different those beers must have tasted compared to our modern lagers.

But as America expanded and other parts of the nation grew barley, the practice died out, especially once the Industrial Revolution made brewing on a large scale more efficient. It wasn’t until the rise of craft beers that pumpkin beers returned, although these were traditionally brewed with barley and hops, with pumpkin flavor added. The first modern version was brewed in the Bay Area, at one of America’s earliest brewpubs, Buffalo Bill’s, founded in Hayward by Bill Owens in 1983. It closed for a time during COVID, but was fortunately reopened recently by new owners who want to keep its legacy alive. Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale was first brewed around 1986. It’s still one of the bestselling pumpkin beers to this day, although it’s become so popular that they now contract the beer-making out to a production brewery to keep up with demand.

Longtime Hayward brewpub Buffalo Bill’s Cerveceria has been brought back after closing in 2022. Shown here are district manager Luis Angel Herrera and owner Alejandro Gamarra. (Courtesy Jay R. Brooks)

While colonial pumpkin beers used actual pumpkins, many modern ones do not, or at least don’t replace the barley with pumpkin. Many add pumpkins into the brewing process in one form or another, whether fresh cut-up pumpkins, pumpkin puree or some other concentrated form. In addition, many modern pumpkin beers also add various spices such as allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger or nutmeg, usually late in the boil to give the beer its seasonal aromatics, making it more like pumpkin pie beer. It’s the pumpkin spices that give many modern pumpkin beers their unique character, and most breweries use their own unique blends to complement the pumpkin flavor.

Other good Bay Area pumpkin beers include Anderson Valley’s Fall Hornin’ Pumpkin Ale and 21st Amendment’s Pumpkin Haze IPA and Almanac’s Dark Pumpkin Sour. From outside our area, try Dogfish Head’s Punkin Ale, New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin, and Rogue Ales and Spirits’ Pumpkin Patch Ale. Also worthwhile is Kern River’s Pumpkin Ale, Southern Tier’s Pumking, or either Shipyard’s Smashed Pumpkin Ale or Pumpkin Head. And Seattle’s Elysian Brewing has several varieties of pumpkin beers, including a variety pack in bottles or cans. The variety packs include their Great Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Night Owl Pumpkin Ale, and Punkuccino Coffee Pumpkin Ale. But check your local specialty beer store to see what they’re stocking this pumpkin beer season. Many brewpubs and breweries will also make a seasonal pumpkin ale for draft only, so this is also a good time to stop by your local brewery to see if it has any pumpkin beers on tap.

Half Moon Bay’s Art & Pumpkin Festival

If you want to try a unique pumpkin beer, head to Half Moon Bay, Calif. From Oct. 18-19, the town will host its 53rd annual Art & Pumpkin Festival. The festival will include a special beer from Half Moon Bay Brewing’s award-winning brewer, James Costa. His Pumpkin Harvest Ale is a stronger version of their Amber Ale — at 6.8% ABV — with slightly reduced hops and added pumpkin and spices. This year’s edition is slightly different from the previous year. If you can’t make the fest, Half Moon Bay Brewery already has the pumpkin beer on tap.

Contact Jay R. Brooks at BrooksOnBeer@gmail.com.

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