Why you should experience LA Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California.
LA Memorial Coliseum is a 90,000-seat open-air stadium where Olympic ceremonies, USC football, and stadium-scale concerts unfold inside one of the most historically significant arenas in American sport.
Anchoring Exposition Park beside the Natural History Museum and BMO Stadium, the Coliseum occupies a massive oval bowl defined by its iconic peristyle end, a towering arched façade crowned by the Olympic torch that has framed global broadcasts for nearly a century. Concrete seating tiers rise in continuous rings around the field, with long sightlines that sweep across the open sky. The structure sits broad and horizontal against the South LA skyline, visible from surrounding boulevards as a civic monument. Los Angeles, California is a city built on performance, but the Coliseum embodies legacy first. The architecture projects permanence.
What you should know about LA Memorial Coliseum.
LA Memorial Coliseum opened in 1923 and has hosted two Olympic Games, with a third scheduled, making it among the only stadiums in the world to carry that distinction.
The peristyle end was designed as a memorial to World War I veterans, and its arches form one of the most recognizable silhouettes in American sports architecture. The seating bowl has been renovated and modernized over the decades, including updated premium seating and structural reinforcement, while preserving the original open-air geometry. Unlike fully enclosed modern stadiums, the Coliseum allows sound and light to escape upward, creating a different acoustic character during games and concerts. What many first-time visitors do not immediately register is the scale of horizontal distance. The bowl stretches wide rather than steep, emphasizing breadth over vertical compression. The open sky above becomes part of the event itself.
How to fold LA Memorial Coliseum into your trip.
LA Memorial Coliseum works best as the anchor of an Exposition Park day.
Arrive early to walk the exterior perimeter and stand beneath the peristyle arches before entering. Once inside, locate your section and take in the full bowl perspective, especially the sightline toward the torch end. Plan concessions around halftime or set breaks to avoid peak movement along the concourses. Pair the event with nearby museum visits or post-game stops elsewhere in the city. When you step back outside into Los Angeles, California, the surrounding parkland feels calmer than the vast concrete ring you just occupied. Inside was historic scale, open sky, and decades of collective memory contained within one enduring stadium.
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