Most residents I talk to treat the marina's summer as three unrelated calendars. The Saturday concerts at Burton Chace Park live on one flyer. Fisherman's Village lives on another. The WaterBus sits in a browser tab somebody meant to read in June. That's the version of the season that gets you into your car at 6:45 p.m., circling Admiralty Way for a parking spot you're not going to find.
The version that works, especially now that we're inside the last five weekends of the series, treats those three things as one loop. The $1 boat is what turns them into a single Saturday instead of three competing ones. Here's how the rest of the summer sequences if you already live in the harbor.
The Saturday that only works if you read it as one loop
A Marina del Rey Saturday, once you stop treating the pieces separately, has a very specific rhythm. It's afternoon music at the Village, evening dinner picnic at Chace Park, then the ride home while the harbor lights come on. The connective tissue is a $1 boat that most residents forget is even running.
| Time | Where | What |
|---|---|---|
| 2:00–5:00 p.m. | Fisherman's Village plaza | Free Summer Music Series, waterfront, bring a low chair |
| 5:00 p.m. | Chace Park | Food trucks arrive at Chace Park, blanket down |
| 7:00 p.m. | Chace Park | Free headline concert |
| 9:00–11:00 p.m. | WaterBus back to your stop | $1, cash, no reservation |
During the regular season the WaterBus runs Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through September 7, and Friday–Saturday service runs until 11:00 p.m., while Sunday service ends at 9:00 p.m. That's the part that changes the shape of your evening. You are not driving out of a full lot at 9:15. You are stepping onto a boat at Chace Park and stepping off near your building.
What the WaterBus actually changes about a concert night
The fare structure is the whole story. Rides are $1 per person one-way, paid in cash as you board, and if you hop off and want to get back on later it's another $1 per person, so a family of four doing a full round-trip costs $8. That is less than the parking difference between arriving at 5:30 and arriving at 7:05.
The route has eight boarding stops around the harbor. Beyond Fisherman's Village and Burton Chace Park, the boat calls at Waterfront Walk near the Ritz-Carlton, Mother's Beach, Dolphin Marina, Esprit, Wetland Park and Del Rey Landing. The practical read on that list: if you live near Dolphin Marina or Esprit, you have a boarding stop within a short walk and no reason to move your car on a Saturday. The busiest boarding areas sit at high-traffic hubs like Fisherman's Village and Burton Chace Park, though lines are typically shorter at the less-frequented docks along the route. That is the local move. Board somewhere else, disembark at Chace, walk back on.
One caveat worth planning around: the boat runs weekends only. There is no Monday through Thursday service during the regular season. A midweek Village dinner is a car or a bike, not a boat.
The five Saturdays that are left
The Marina del Rey Summer Concert Series has been running at Chace Park for 26 years, and there are exactly five Saturdays remaining in the 2026 run:
- July 18 — Los Lobos
- July 25 — Tyrese
- August 1 — Marina del Rey Symphony, Video Game Music program
- August 8 — Monsieur Periné
- August 15 — D Smoke and Carl Thomas
The August 1 symphony program follows the July 11 opener, which was the Marina del Rey Symphony performing Encanto live to film. The scheduling is deliberate: pop headliner, symphony, pop headliner, symphony. If you have kids, the two symphony dates are the easier entry points. If you don't, the pop Saturdays are the ones that pull the biggest crowds and the tightest parking, which is another argument for the boat.
All of it is free. Seating is first-come, first-served festival style, admission is free, and the series runs on select Saturdays in July and August. A folding chair, a jacket for the marine layer, and a picnic are all the equipment you need.
The Village stopped being a daytime errand
The other thing that changed this season, and the thing most residents haven't fully absorbed, is that Fisherman's Village added an anchor. The Village held a free two-day grand kickoff on May 30 and 31 to mark the opening of a new Historical Society and the launch of the 2026 Summer Music Series, with a ribbon-cutting for the Fisherman's Village Historical Society followed by afternoon DJ music.
The new gallery is small, but it's real. The new space is larger and includes windows facing Marina del Rey Harbor, and additions to the exhibit include Native American artifacts and a collection of framed Marina del Rey photographs donated by Tony Palermo of Tony P's Dockside Grill. If you have out-of-town family visiting during any of the last five concert weekends, this is the pre-concert stop that makes the afternoon feel less like errand-running and more like a day.
The Village restaurants line up around it in a way that solves the "where are we eating before the show" question. El Torito serves fajitas and margaritas with front-row views of the water, KC Crêpes Café does sweet and savory crêpes for a lighter stop, Lighthouse Fountain & Grill offers burgers and shakes, and La Sirenetta covers fresh seafood with outdoor seating. La Marina Trattoria is open daily 11:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. for the Italian pre-concert version of the plan.
Sunset Cinema and the off-Saturday problem
The concert series ends August 15. The last two Saturdays of August used to be dead weekends on the water. That is where the Village's other addition matters.
This summer marks the debut of Sunset Cinema, a new outdoor movie series at Fisherman's Village, on select Saturday evenings, with cult classics under the marina breeze. The August 16 selection is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That is the Saturday right after the D Smoke concert closes out Chace Park, and it keeps the rhythm going for one more weekend without asking you to drive anywhere new.
Two small operational notes locals should know. Check-in opens at 7:00 p.m., but arriving early gives you time to park, grab food and find a spot. And the small hack that pays for itself: a $10-plus purchase from any of the on-site restaurants qualifies you for a free movie headset. Buy the crêpe, keep the headset.
Parking at the Village stays cheap. Rates are typically $2 for 2 hours or $8 max per day. That's the same $8 the family-of-four WaterBus round-trip costs. Two different ways of not overpaying to be on the water.
If you'd rather skip the boat entirely
For residents on the east side of the harbor, or anyone who already logs miles on the coastal trail, the car-free version of this same weekend is a bike, not a boat. Fisherman's Village sits at 13723 Fiji Way along the Marvin Braude Coastal Bike Trail on the edge of the harbor. The trail links the Village to Mother's Beach and to Chace Park without putting you on Admiralty. You can rent bikes at Daniel's Bicycle Rentals right in Fisherman's Village if you're hosting anyone who didn't bring their own.
The one Village detail worth remembering as a resident, not a visitor: the WaterBus welcomes bikes and strollers aboard. So the boat and the bike aren't a choice. They're a combination. Ride the trail down, float back up while the sun's setting behind Playa del Rey.
The thesis, restated
The reason to read the summer as one loop instead of three calendars is not that any single event has changed. Los Lobos is Los Lobos. The Village is the Village. The boat has been a dollar since the Bush administration. The change is that the Historical Society and Sunset Cinema, both new in 2026, gave the Village enough gravity to hold up its half of a Saturday night the way Chace Park has always held up its half. That's the shift. You now have two anchors of roughly equal weight on either side of the same $1 shuttle.
For someone who already owns in the marina, that matters more than it sounds. It's the difference between the harbor being a view you have from your unit and the harbor being the actual venue for how you use your weekends. Five Saturdays are left. That's the window.
If you're thinking about how a marina address behaves in real life, whether you already own here and are considering a move within the harbor, or you're a client looking at the water from the other direction, I'm always up for a walk down the Village side or a coffee at Chace. Reach out to Bill Ruane anytime. Let's Connect.
