Re-live the Venice Sign Holiday Lighting

Venice Paparazzi was on the scene! View pics below!

Here is a message from Venice Sign Event Producer George Francisco!

It was great to bring the Holiday Lighting of the Venice Sign back live and in-person after a long year-plus of the pandemic and a remote event in 2019. This, the 10th annual celebration, was maybe the most joyful and anticipated during my tenure as lead producer. So many of our local businesses contributed that I can’t express my gratitude enough, especially after what they’ve had to endure during and after Covid.

But things are looking up for Venice and LA. Sheriff Villanueva shared a heartfelt message in his welcome speech; we were able to recognize our friends Victor Jauregui and Bob Davis for their decades of service to our community and all of LA in the Department of Rec and Parks; and 6 talented young artists from our public elementary schools were saluted on-stage for winning the 7th “My Venice Holiday” poster contest!

George Francisco, Mike Newhouse, and LA. Sheriff Villanueva

Mike Newhouse, Victor Jauregui and Bob Davis

7th “My Venice Holiday” poster contest winners, LAUSD Board Rep Nick Melvoin, and Venice Art Crawl’s President Sunny Bak

And what terrific art those Poster Contest Winners made! Anna Kanji (K CdA), Charli O’Brian (1st Grade CdA), Devon Zech-Gros (2nd Grade CdA), Ricardo Gonzalez (3rd Grade Westminster), Chaya Chu (4th Grade Westminter), Quinn Altman (5th Grade CdA) are all amazing artists. A special shout out to Sunny Bak and the entire Venice Art Crawl Team, our LAUSD Board Rep Nick Melvoin who came out to share the moment with the kids and their families, plus a big thanks to the contest sponsor Andrew Mika along with Erinn Bonefeld from Burro, Joe Falzano from Huzzah Toys, Sandra Zebi, Andrea Tan, Fay Livesey, Lori Snyder and David Stine for helping to make the contest happen!

When it came time for entertainment, local legend Tom Freund and up-and-coming artist David Frank put on amazing performances for everyone while our All-Star band of rock royalty performed an incredible array of tunes – band leader Rob Christie, Jimmy Z, Ricky Z, Randy Cooke, Danielle Bisutti, Sheyna Gee, Rachel Anderson and other guests were their usual stellar selves. And even though we caught the best weather of an otherwise foggy week, headliner Vicki Peterson, co-founder of the iconic female rock band, The Bangles, was right at home jamming out one of the group’s biggest hits “Hazy Shade of Winter” along with a bunch of other songs.

The Venice West’s Carl

Venice local Lori Petty, best known for “Point Break” and “A League of Their Own,” gave a great speech about her love for Venice and how she wound up moving here 31 years ago while shooting “Point Break” before doing the honors and flipping the switch to light up the Venice Sign red and green.

We had snow in the air and lights on The Sign and hopefully everyone shared some fun and found some joy in being around each other after so long apart.

Lori Petty

Vicki Peterson

John Cowsill and Vicki Peterson

Special thanks go out to my emcee Mike Newhouse, who does a one-of-a-kind job keeping things flowing; the entire crew lead by Todd Alter and Brennan Lindner, Matt Boehm, David Santiago and Chris Lee; our in-kind sponsors Tom Elliot of the Venice Ale House, Chloe Waibel and Maria Vail from Bev, Matty Christesson from Gilly’s, CC Carter of First Team Security and David Stine for his incredible design work.

A huge thank you goes out to Bob Carlson of The Arbor Collective as the Presenting Sponsor!

VIP Sponsors were Belles Beach, Winston House, The Venice West, Rolling Stone, SoulTox, and Lucky Brand.

Community Sponsors included City Land Use, the V Hotel, Venice Breeze Suites. The Rose Venice, Mike Salem, The Venice Place, Sidewalk Café, Pardee Properties, Google, The Erwin, Build Group, Cookies, , General Real Estate, Scott Spector, Burn Fitness, DU Architects, Venice Ale House, GVS Properties, BrandView Capital, Wallflower, System 1, Pacific Urbanism, Glaser Weil, ZapWater Communications, Deasy Penner, Paloma Realty Partners, Andy & Rose Layman, Frame LA, Venice Whaler, Public Storage, Great White, Gran Blanco, The Waterfront, Hinano’s, Nighthawk Breakfast Bar, Bev, Clutch, Venice Family Clinic, StrongHouse Realty, Butchers Daughter, de Buena Planta, Only The Wild Ones, Santa Monica Lexus, Santa Monica Toyota, Menotti’s, The Townhouse, Sweetfin, Sole Bikes, Affirm CBD, Gjelina, Market, Crest Real Estate, m_royce Architecture, Venice Living Magazine, Public Storage and The Circuit.

Hotel Erwin’s Amy Castillo and Hama Sushi’s Esther Chaing

U.S. Coast Guards

Team Venice Chamber: Michael and Karin Wallerstein, Donna Lasman

Team Arbor Collective

Venice Electric Bike Parade’s Marcus

California Highway Patrol

The event also hosted local non-profit organizations Pacific CPAB, Share! Collaborative Housing, Venice Community Clean-Ups ,the Verdant Venice Group, the Venice Pier Project, Open Temple, the Venice Heritage Museum, Hacker Fund, Youthful Saving, the Venice Art Walls and Meals On Wheels West; along with municipal agencies LA Rec and Parks, the US Coast Guard, the Venice NC, FBI, USPS Inspectors Service, CHP, LAPD Communications, LA County Beaches & Harbors and the Red Cross.

We make the good times here in Venice, but we share them with the world!

Thank you to Venice Neighborhood Council for hosting the “Photos with Santa.”

Here is a message from VNC’s Outreach Officer Sima Kostovetsky.

It was such a great night all around, and this was due in large part thanks to the Venice Paparazzi team. The Santa line went on until 9:30 p.m. Both kids and adults enjoyed this incredible community event. We were so happy to engage with our stakeholders and experience the great synergy with the bike registry and bike lights.

About the Venice Neighborhood Council: Our mission is to improve the quality of life in Venice by building community and to secure support from the City of Los Angeles for the resources needed to achieve our goals. For more info, visit venicenc.org

Trek Thunder, Marcus, and Sima Kostovetsky

Santa, aka Ivan Spiegel

Santa and the LAPD cadats

Check out some of the fun Venice Sign photos from our green screen photo booth!

Photo booth sponsored by the Venice Chamber of Commerce

The Venice Paparazzi Green Screen photo booth

Venice Art Crawl’s Sunny Bak and “My Venice” poster contest winners.

Happy belated birthday Diane Barretti!

Julie and Demetrios Mavromichalis

Hinano and Nighthawk: Breakfast Bar’s Addie and Mark Gessel

The Sullivan’s, The Venice West’s Kaycee, Venice Paparazzi’s Edizen, and Google’s Troy

Venice Pop Paddle

Team Venice Paparazzi: Edizen, Jaime, Alex, Marlene, Alize. Missing from this photo: Greg, Tiffany, Daniel and Zoltan

Here is a message from the Venice Chamber!

About the Venice Sign: The Venice Sign, a federally registered trademark of the Venice Chamber of Commerce and Venice’s most iconic symbol, attracts thousands of tourists to Venice. In 2007, the Venice Sign Restoration Project recreated and installed the contemporary version of this historic sign. Since that time, the Venice Chamber has been responsible for maintaining the sign and for protecting its trademark. Today this lasting legacy is restored across Windward Avenue as a tribute to the celebrated Venice of years past and a modern-day gateway to the world-famous Venice Beach. For more info: venicesign.org.

About the Venice Chamber of Commerce: The Venice Chamber of Commerce is an organization of business leaders who actively serve as advocates for our expanding professional community. Through dynamic networking events and diverse committees, we support the interests of area businesses and contribute to improving the vitality of the local economy. To learn more about the Venice Chamber, visit venicechamber.net.

Venice Paparazzi Fun Fact!

Venice Paparazzi has covered Venice Sign events since the inaugural event of the lighting of the restored Venice Sign in 2007. If you were at a Venice Sign event, we may have taken a photo of you. Re-live the best of 2007-2021 Venice Sign photos by Venice Paparazzi.