Home of OTL’s Captivating Interactive Show Fountain in Los Angeles, California Hosts 12th Annual Commemorative Día de los Muertos Celebration

For the last 12 years, Gloria Molina Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles, California has been the site of an annual Día de los Muertos event.

The cultural holiday, which stands for Day of the Dead, is widely observed in Mexico around Halloween by people of Mexican heritage to commemorate the souls of the dead. Each year, from the end of October to the beginning of November, Grand Park honors the holiday by hosting a celebration around an enthralling interactive show fountain designed and built by OTL.

Our team partnered with The Raymond Group to reconstruct a 1960s-era fountain at the site, restoring and re-energizing the water feature to create a spectacular gathering place highlighted by water shows with synchronized colored LED lights. The reimagined fountain provides light for a place where visitors and Angelenos from all walks of life come together to celebrate, relax and enjoy life—providing the perfect backdrop for the park’s yearly Día de los Muertos event.

At night, guests are treated to the water feature’s breathtaking light and water displays, including 50-foot sprays of water that shoot upward in the original fountain bowl. During the daytime, visitors can enjoy splashing in the fountain’s lower membrane pool, where water flows across 6,200 square feet of dark granite.

Every October, Grand Park’s stakeholders decorate the fountain and park with traditional black-and-white and colorful Día de los Muertos skull images and with altar installations made by professional artists and local organizations, honoring the dead. The activity was supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency.

Past celebrations have included public programs and activities on opening day, including poetry readings, musical and dance performances, sugar skull decorating, colorful chalk art, and face painting.