LA Phil at Walt Disney Concert Hall

Right on par. Architecture of the 21st century.

Fun fact #1 - The crazy colors of the seats in the main auditorium are so that when the seats are empty, there still maintains the illusion of a packed house

Fun fact #2 - The steel matte panels serve two purposes, reflecting the sky/context and flexibilty for the curvature

Fun fact #3 - A special computer program was created in Frank Gehry's research lab just to figure out how to build this piece of architecture and his other buildings with similar geometry

Fun fact #4 - When empty, you can perfectly hear a person talking from the opposite site of the auditorium.

Fun fact #5 - The exterior panels were initally designed to be glossy like a mirror but surrounding buildings complained about the glare and the heat it produced so they had to sand down the panels to make it a matte texture.

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( づ they have parking for 10$. The staff here is very nice. Amazing experience. Everyone should try it once!

Went there March 2024 - parking is plentiful $10

They have lots of EV chargers but it's through the - powerflex ev app so set this up before hand

They have a nice gift shop to walk around but there isn't much to see and explore beyond the gift shop and the main reception area. The majority of the space is really just the auditorium.

So there isn't a ton to do inside the building before the show but of course you can walk around the exterior and enjoy access to the different levels of the concert hall's exterior since the doors will all be unlocked.

I was told to come 60 minutes before the show but found 15-30 minutes is plenty to grab a complimentary drink from the reception and walk around the entire building. The entire building you can easily walk in less than 15 minutes time.

I came to watch the LA chamber performance and found that it did not have amplification through the speakers like other concerts so just FYI. From my perspective it was raw, pure and much quieter experience than concerts with mics/speakers blasting louder.

Definitely something to try at least once as part of the LA bucket list

Amazing acoustic plus Hillary Hahn is an incredible day. Pleasant terrace garden and fountain. Ample restrooms. Nice gift store.

Highly recommended!

It was my first time here at the Disney Music Hall! It's such a beautiful venue! I enjoyed it immensely!!! The parking was great, easy to get into the venue. The staff is so welcoming at every turn. Directions to our seats were spot on, we were easily seated in them. They were great seats almost from and center! It was a lovely concert well introduced and it felt like such an intimate setting. Getting out after it finished was equally well directed and good evenings from every staff member on the way out! A perfect evening!!!

Disney hall is unique both inside and out. We enjoy getting here early to explore the building. The events here are all different so check the website. Lots of places to eat in the area so you should find something . I like the Central Market nearby. Most of all have fun

Personally, I think most Frank Gehry-designed buildings are ugly and primarily a tribute to how large amounts of money makes a lot of people want to be surrounded by ugly, inhuman environments, but I'm not going to hold it against the facility. Only against fans of modernist architecture.

Any major cultural center in a major metropolitan city is going to be very nice and very well-funded, so it goes without saying that the inside was immaculate, the seats nice, the bathrooms fantastic, etc. etc.

Parking was convenient, though you obviously have to pay.

Also as a pro-tip, during the intermission, if you want the shortest lines, you should rush downstairs to use the bathroom downstairs. In general, the seats closest to the stages are fancy rich people seats, so the bathrooms near the entrance into those parts of the audience are the most sparsely used and nicest!

A few downsides was a relatively limited number of concession stands. It's really just not feasible given the length of the lines to get a drink or really anything in the interval, unless you're willing to risk not getting back in time.

The other downside was that the facilities weren't quite appropriate for what was being performed that night. The LA Phil performed Fidelio, the Beethoven opera, and quite frankly the surtitles were terribly done. They were extremely small and often didn't line up or shift with the actual speaker. I understand that this is a concert hall and not an opera house, but you'd expect them to either find a workaround or not hold an opera there. I would have been absolutely befuddled as to what was going on if I weren't with a German speaker willing to fill in the gaps for me.

WHY does Disney Hall INSIST on not welcoming the audience or announcing the conductor, composer or soloists??? VERY aloof and pretentious atmosphere, Very cold and unfriendly vibe,

Home to the LA Philharmonic & the LA Master Chorale, architecture looks like soaring sails filled with the wind. Impressive to wander around these walls and garden or sit and relax (chairs & tables by the rose fountain). May see a photo shoot going on like we did.

Design
-by Frank Gehry (& Minoru Nagata)
-is postmodern deconstructivist style where design elements are fragmented.
-used computer aided 3D interactive application (CATIA program used to design French fighter jets) to design each wall panels (no 2 panels are alike).

Frank Gehry
was a fan of sailing and designer of
1. The Dancing Bouse in Prague
2. Guggenheim Museum in Balboa, Spain (which was designed after this concert hall but completed before this).

Lillian Disney, widow of Walt Disney,
1. started the project with her $50M gift in 1987. $84.5 from Disney family and $25M from The Walt Disney Co. It opened in 2003 and over the budget at $265-274M.
2. came up with the Mickey in Mickey Mouse
3. died exactly 31 years later on the same day Walt died when he was 73 in '66 and she 98 on Dec 15, 1997

Building Exterior
is covered with 6.500 mostly matted stainless steel panels. The ones not matted and with a mirror-like polish were later dulled in 2005 to reduce the glare, heat, and resulting high a/c bills for nearby residents.

The Blue Ribbon Garden
-located above the parking garage,
-made up of 45 trees of 6 varieties
-Fountain A Rose for Lilly is for Lillian Disney and her love of gardening influenced the design and landscaping of this garden. A fan of Dutch's Royal Deft porcelain, Gehry created a mosaic fountain made up of 200 Dutch vases & 8,000 tiles.project took 4 months.

Interior has
1. perfect acoustics (1st priority in the design)
2. seating for 2,273 is wrapped around the orchestra area and designed as a ship hull
3. Douglas Fir Tree columns were inspired by Lillian's vision the lobby as an old vine-covered English cottage. Columns cover the a/c & lighting
4. PIpe Organ has dramatic (curved) wooden pipes (Gehryms nickname "French fries"); checcorgan recitals
5. The Library of Congress/Ira Gershwin Gallery (2nd floor)
6. Restaurant Asterid (Yelp 4.5*) with chef Ray Garcia (replaced Patina with chef Nolan Murphy)

Tour
1. free guided hour tour available on weekdays (meets in the Grand Lobby)
2. free 60 minute self-guided audio tours (narrated by John Lithgow)

Located
between 1st & 2nd Ave and between Hope St & Grand St.

I came here to watch John Legend and the concert was great. The atmosphere here is really nice and I feel any seat is good. Even the top mezzanine seats aren't bad and can get a good view of the artist. I sat on the side mezzanine and I got a view of everything around. Can't wait for my next concert here!

I'm not going to review the LA Phil itself because they are awesome wherever they play. This is just a review of the facility.

Walt Disney Concert Hall is an architectural marvel. The exterior is dazzling and the interior is incredible, too. Inside, the seating is "vineyard" style which, I learned, means that there is seating on all four sides facing the floor.

As others have noted, there is not a bad seat in the house. We had balcony seats, almost at the very top, and the view was still terrific. The acoustics are also outstanding so no worries there.

The seating capacity is only about 2,200 which is fairly small compared to a lot of other venues.

The venue is first class all the way. Construction of this building completed in 2003--19 years ago--and it feels completely new and as modern as can be.