Hollywood Has Spirit brings LA creatives together this holiday season.
Hollywood Has Spirit isn’t just a night out. It’s a statement about keeping Los Angeles alive as a place where creative work actually happens.
On Thursday, December 18, Hollywood Has Spirit: An Entertainment Creatives Bar Crawl takes over Highland Park, bringing together filmmakers, artists, and media workers across film, television, theater, games, podcasts, and digital media for a multi-venue evening built around connection, movement, and shared ground.
Running from 7:00–10:00 p.m. PT, the event unfolds across several venues along York Boulevard. The night opens with four simultaneous mixers—Development, Production, Post-Production, and Entertainment + Media—reflecting the full creative pipeline. Attendees choose a starting point and circulate freely, creating organic overlap between disciplines that rarely gather in the same room.
Unleash creative energy
Unleash creative energyThe evening culminates with the Final Cut Mega Mixer at The Hermosillo, where the entire crowd converges for a unified close.
More than 100 confirmed special guests appear on the promotional lineup, each bringing their own creative networks into the mix. Confirmed creatives include Michael P. Shawver (Sinners, editor), Matthew Claybrooks (Lil Kev, co-creator), and Briana Jorgenson (The Rehearsal, costume designer), among many others actively shaping today’s entertainment landscape.
What sets Hollywood Has Spirit apart is its alignment with organizations whose work extends far beyond one night—none more critical than Stay in LA.
Keep LA working
Keep LA workingStay in LA is a grassroots advocacy movement focused on a single, urgent mission: keeping film and television jobs in Los Angeles. As runaway production and aggressive tax incentives elsewhere continue to drain work from the city, Stay in LA advocates for below-the-line workers whose livelihoods depend on consistent local production. Their efforts center on modernizing California’s incentives, educating policymakers, and building solidarity across crafts at a moment when fragmentation threatens the workforce itself.
Every production that leaves LA impacts editors, grips, costumers, sound mixers, drivers, and countless others. Stay in LA frames this not as sentimentality, but as economic reality—when production leaves, communities hollow out.
Their partnership with Hollywood Has Spirit grounds the event in that reality. Networking here isn’t abstract. It’s infrastructure. These gatherings keep workers visible, connected, and engaged at a time when isolation has become one of the industry’s most dangerous byproducts.
Ignite the unseen potential
Additional partners include The California Post Alliance (CAPA) and Outside In Theatre, reinforcing the event’s broader commitment to strengthening the local creative economy from the ground up.
Hollywood Has Spirit doesn’t offer panels or pitches. It offers something more elemental: shared space, movement, and conversation across the entire entertainment ecosystem—reminding the industry that Los Angeles still has its spirit, and it’s worth fighting for.
Show your support for below-the-line crews—show up, connect, and spark the creative collaborations that keep Los Angeles working.
Update:
The holiday edition of Hollywood Has Spirit has officially wrapped, leaving behind a clear message: Los Angeles’ creative community is still deeply invested in gathering offline, building relationships face to face, and supporting one another outside the pressure of premieres, pitch rooms, and red carpets. Held during the busiest and most emotionally charged season of the year, the event delivered exactly what it promised—connection, warmth, and creative solidarity.
Unlike traditional industry mixers that lean heavily into self-promotion, Hollywood Has Spirit focused on atmosphere and accessibility. The tone was intentionally welcoming, drawing a mix of filmmakers, writers, performers, producers, visual artists, and behind-the-scenes professionals. The result was a room that felt less transactional and more communal, a rarity in an industry often defined by hierarchy and urgency.
The holiday timing played a meaningful role. December in Hollywood can feel isolating, especially for freelancers, newcomers, and creatives navigating uncertainty between projects. By positioning the event as a seasonal gathering rather than a business-first function, Hollywood Has Spirit created space for genuine conversation. Attendees spoke openly about current work, upcoming plans, and the realities of sustaining a creative career in Los Angeles, without the pressure to “sell” themselves in every interaction.
One of the standout elements of the event was its diversity—not just in backgrounds, but in disciplines. Film and television creatives mingled with digital creators, musicians, designers, and artists working across emerging platforms. This cross-pollination reinforced a key reality of the modern entertainment landscape: creative careers are no longer linear. The event reflected that shift, offering a snapshot of an industry that is hybrid, adaptive, and increasingly collaborative.
The environment encouraged organic networking. Conversations formed naturally around shared experiences rather than résumés. Many attendees noted that they made more meaningful connections in a single evening than at multiple formal networking events combined. That ease of interaction has become a defining trait of Hollywood Has Spirit, setting it apart from more rigid industry gatherings.
From an organizational standpoint, the event demonstrated how intentional curation matters. The guest list felt balanced—large enough to generate energy, but intimate enough to avoid anonymity. The setting supported conversation rather than distraction, allowing attendees to actually hear one another and stay engaged. Small details, from pacing to layout, reinforced the event’s emphasis on presence and participation.
The creative community response was notably positive. Post-event conversations and social media reactions highlighted appreciation for the event’s tone and purpose. Rather than focusing on status or visibility, attendees praised the sense of mutual respect and encouragement. For many, the evening served as a reminder of why they chose creative work in the first place—not just to produce content, but to be part of a shared cultural ecosystem.
Hollywood Has Spirit also succeeded in reaffirming the importance of community-driven events in an era dominated by digital interaction. While online platforms remain essential for exposure and promotion, this gathering underscored the irreplaceable value of in-person connection. Trust, collaboration, and long-term creative relationships are still built most effectively in shared physical spaces.
As the holiday season comes to a close, the event stands as a strong closing note for the year. It didn’t aim to predict industry trends or announce major deals. Instead, it did something quieter and arguably more important: it brought people together, reminded them they’re not working in isolation, and reinforced a sense of collective momentum heading into the new year.
With this latest edition, Hollywood Has Spirit continues to position itself as more than just an event series. It functions as a cultural checkpoint for LA creatives—a place to pause, reconnect, and reset. The success of the holiday gathering suggests that the demand for thoughtful, human-centered industry spaces is not fading. If anything, it’s growing.
