Pop-Up Magazine’s live storytelling comes back to LA

The art of oral storytelling spans from The Odyssey to a toddler’s bedtime routine — somewhere in between is Pop-Up Magazine, a live multimedia storytelling show.

“We think of it as a chance for people to tell stories in all different kinds of media from photography to film to animation,” said Douglas McGray, co-creator and editor-in-chief of Pop-Up Magazine, explaining that the event breaks the traditional storytelling model of a person behind a microphone.

There’s interesting audio, a live band, and compelling videos. (Last Spring’s event included a fascinating piece by photographer Anand Varma, whose story about bees and the mites that are threatening them was accompanied by striking super magnified photographs of the insects in the first days of their lives.)

The event, which comes to Los Angeles on September 24, is not recorded, live streamed, periscoped or tweeted, and can only be experienced by sitting like a proper theatergoer (put your phone away!) at the Ace Hotel.

Even in a big theater, there’s something intimate and inspiring about live storytelling. And when it’s all over, the bar is open.

The upcoming lineup includes Angeleno and Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic Christopher Hawthorne; Photographer Matt Black, who has captured the way the drought has devastated the Central Valley; New York Times Technology Reporter Jenna Wortham and others who don’t usually share a stage.

Pop-Up Magazine is produced by the same people who make the California Sunday Magazine. Find out everything you need to know about the lineup and buy tickets here.