The Burial of the Unclaimed Dead is for all Angelenos who care (2025)
Gentle reader,
The Burial of the Unclaimed Dead ceremony for those who passed in 2022 will take place Thursday 12/11/2025 at 10am. RSVPs required (free) on Eventbrite. If you can make it, sign up now before you read anything else!
Our sincere wish is that all who care to attend will have the opportunity to honor these souls in person this year.
UPDATE 12/8/2025: The 2025 Burial of the Unclaimed Dead service within hours sold out of a limited number of free tickets on the Eventbrite platform. We and others have been advocating with the County, asking that they release more tickets so that members of the public who care can attend, but that’s not going to happen.
However, the County has said that they will have a line for people to queue in case of no shows. So there you go. But we’re not comfortable telling those without tickets to line up at 3301 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90063 before 10am on December 11 without also saying that since tickets began being issued for this previously open-to-all service, unticketed mourners have watched the ceremony from behind the chain link fence on the Evergreen Cemetery property side. Angelenos are welcome to park inside Evergreen Cemetery, and we are comfortable in telling you that all are welcome there.
In 2023, tickets for the general public were limited to 75 people, but only about 20 actually came. We livestreamed the footage you see in our December 2024 newsletter as on-the-spot advocacy for returning this holy ceremony to its proper status as a free and open opportunity for the community to mourn and honor those who are unclaimed.
We have also advocated for the public to be able to park next door at Evergreen Cemetery, which is a short walk along the sidewalk from the Fresno Gate to the County Cemetery grounds. This is important for public access, since street parking is very limited. We’re grateful to our friends at Evergreen for making their grounds available to attendees at the County’s service.
Should you click the Eventbrite link and find you are unable to sign up due to capacity being met, please post a comment on the newsletter thread below. We will continue to advocate for public access to the burial ceremony.
The date of this year’s ceremony puts us in a bit of a pickle, since councilmember Curren Price will be back in court that morning, for the rescheduled first day of his pre-trial public corruption hearing. But we’ll do our best to be there for the unclaimed of Los Angeles, as we have done for years.
And for anyone unable to attend in person, you can watch the livestream on Facebook or see it later, and the County’s pretty cemetery is open to visitors who’d like to pay their respects on weekdays.
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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UPCOMING WALKING TOURS
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Hi, I have to admit that I am one of those people who always have the intention to attend this, and SHAMEFULLY never actually attend. I tried again this year and it was "sold out". It seems like the fact that people (shameless people like me) sign up to attend with all good intentions and then for whatever reason, don't actually go, so I assume that if I were to attend this year, I would actually be substituting for a no-show. Should I just make the assumption that there will be people that don't go (no shade - I have been one of them)...and attend? How can there be too many people when last year there were 20 for however many of them that were buried?
Aaaand tix are gone now. Thank you for letting us know about their availability! See you there again :)