Walk toward the pier on Manhattan Beach Boulevard this week and you will notice the scaffolding before you notice a single volleyball net. Grandstand risers are already going up. The stretch of boulevard closest to the sand reads like a construction zone, not an open street. No teams have checked in yet. No qualifier match has been played. If this is your first August living in Manhattan Beach, the town already feels like tournament season days before the tournament actually starts.
That gap between when the volleyball begins and when the street stops functioning normally is the part of MBO weekend most residents never quite pin down, and it is worth pinning down if you live within a few blocks of the pier.
The Match Clock Isn't the Same as the Closure Clock
According to the city's own event listing, the 2026 Manhattan Beach Open by AVP runs three days of competition, August 14 through 16, preceded by a Walk of Fame ceremony on the pier the afternoon of August 13. That is the part everyone plans around.
The city's detailed closure map tells a longer story. The block of Manhattan Beach Boulevard nearest the pier is closed from August 10 through August 19, a full ten days, while the tighter closures on Ocean Drive between 11th and 12th, and on the boulevard west of Manhattan Avenue, hold to the three competition days. Building a sand court and a grandstand large enough for Olympians takes time, and taking it back down takes time too. That extra week rarely shows up anywhere except the fine print of the city's own permit map.
This Isn't the First Closure of the Month
A week and a half before the pros arrived, the same blocks were already fenced off for a different event. The Charlie Saikley 6-Man Tournament, founded in 1974 by Charlie Saikley and now run in partnership with the city's Parks and Recreation Department, filled the pier with costumed teams and a junior division the first three days of August. Local coverage put attendance at thousands of spectators for what has become one of the more beloved fixtures on the summer calendar.
The lower pier parking lots closed that Thursday morning and did not reopen until the following Monday. The boulevard itself followed the same schedule. The upper lots and the short stretch of Ocean Drive near the courts closed for the weekend in between. For residents near the sand, the Saikley weekend and the MBO weekend are not two separate disruptions two weeks apart. They are bookends on one long stretch of orange cones.
Add It Up: Twenty-One Days, Seven of Them Actual Volleyball
Line the two tournaments up on a calendar and the arithmetic is simple. The first Saikley closure hit Thursday, July 30. The last MBO closure on the books lifts Wednesday, August 19. That is 21 days, three full weeks, during which some portion of the boulevard or the pier lots has been fenced, cordoned, or otherwise unavailable for normal use.
Inside that 21-day window, the actual sanctioned play across both tournaments adds up to roughly seven days: the Saikley main draw and its junior division at the start of August, then the MBO's ceremony and three days of competition in the middle of the month. Residents near the pier live with the barricades and the lot closures for about three times as long as anyone is actually playing volleyball.
None of this is a complaint about the tournaments themselves. It is simply the piece of information that turns "the town gets busy in August" into something you can actually plan a week around.
Free Admission, Not Free Parking
General admission to the Manhattan Beach Open is free, and the city is direct about what that means logistically: there is no dedicated event parking, and residents and visitors alike are encouraged to walk, bike, or rideshare instead of driving in.
That advice matters more this year than it might have a summer or two ago. Downtown Manhattan Beach normally runs on 12 city-owned parking lots and more than 300 street meters, with valet available on Friday and Saturday evenings and enforcement running from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. everywhere except the pier lots, which are metered around the clock. During tournament week, that everyday supply gets squeezed from both directions, fewer available spaces near the action and more people looking for one.
The city added a new option this summer worth knowing about before Thursday. Wave Rider, Manhattan Beach's on-demand electric microtransit program, launched with limited service on June 4 and moved to full service on June 9, running through the Circuit app. For anyone trying to get from a neighborhood a mile or so back from the sand to the pier without circling for a spot, it is a genuinely useful new tool, and one that did not exist the last time MBO rolled through town.
The construction crew on the boulevard this week isn't running late. It's running on schedule, just a schedule that starts before most residents think tournament season has.
Where Downtown Still Works This Week
The closures cluster tightly on the blocks immediately around the pier. Walk two or three blocks up Manhattan Avenue and the town is running on a normal Thursday-in-August schedule, tournament or not.
Fishing with Dynamite, chef David LeFevre's oyster bar at 1148 Manhattan Ave, sits well outside the closure zone and is listed in the 2025 Michelin Guide USA. The Arthur J, a few doors down at 903 Manhattan Ave, is doing its usual wood-fire steaks unaffected by the barricades near the sand. Shellback Tavern, tucked on a side street, is the kind of neighborhood pub where a tournament crowd rarely finds its way in. Love & Salt, at 317 Manhattan Beach Blvd, sits closer to the action and will likely run busier and slower than usual, so a reservation is worth the extra step this week.
Two newer additions are also worth knowing about this month. Saint & Second, the modern American restaurant from Hofman Hospitality Group, opened its first South Bay location on July 21 at 3160 N Sepulveda Blvd in Manhattan Village, well inland from any tournament closure. And Great White, the Venice-born all-day cafe known for wood-fired pizzas and fish tacos, is moving into the former Pitfire Pizza space at 401 Manhattan Beach Blvd inside the Metlox complex, right along the boulevard, so it is worth checking whether the space is open to walk-in traffic before you head over during tournament week.
How to Actually Plan the Week
If you live or work near the sand, here is the short version of everything above.
- Expect barricades and reduced parking on Manhattan Beach Boulevard starting August 10, four days before the first match, not August 14.
- If your block is off Highland or Sepulveda rather than right on the boulevard, the main effect will be more people hunting for parking, not the closures themselves.
- Admission is free, but there is no dedicated lot, so treat this week like a walk-or-bike errand or try Wave Rider through the Circuit app.
- Restaurants a few blocks off the pier, including Fishing with Dynamite, The Arthur J, Shellback Tavern, and the newly opened Saint & Second in Manhattan Village, are running on a normal schedule all week. Great White's new spot at Metlox sits right on the boulevard, so it is worth confirming hours before heading over during tournament week.
- The barricades come down for good on August 19, not the Monday right after finals, so give the boulevard a few extra days before expecting it back to normal.
None of this changes why Manhattan Beach residents put up with three weeks of cones and closures for one weekend of professional volleyball on their own sand. It is part of what makes living a few blocks from the pier feel different from living anywhere else in the South Bay, closures, crowds, and all.
If MBO season has you thinking about what it actually feels like to live in the blocks closest to all this energy, DnG knows the streets around the pier block by block, tournament season and every other week of the year. Let's Connect.
