The Mattel Toy Store Holiday Tent opened on Saturday, October 17, at 1955 E. Grand Ave. It is open Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., through December 19, 2026. Counting from today, Thursday, October 29, that leaves 24 scheduled sale days in a season of 28. The tent sits behind Mattel's year-round store on the company's headquarters campus, and BargainsLA's 2026 listing puts most of the stock at 30 to 75 percent off. Those discounts have a clear cause. The tent sells the year's surplus, and the start of the cycle that produces that surplus has moved onto Grand Avenue too.
Thirty to 75 Percent Off Is What Overstock Looks Like
The tent works as a clearance floor, not a holiday pop-up. In 2015, Action Figure Insider described the sale as "primarily made up of bulk overstock toy of this year." Older items turned up now and then, and popular products came in whole pallets or bins of a single item. The same writer said new shipments arrived several times a week. In a year when Mattel had less overstock, the tent felt lighter.
That makes the tent a rough mirror of the toy year. When a line sells through in stores, less of it shows up here. When a line underperforms, the bins fill. The 2015 account recalls a three-foot bin of first-wave Disney/Pixar Cars at $1.00 each during the writer's first visit in 2006. It also mentions pallets of superhero figures and "almost the entire Avatar line" in earlier seasons. Those details are a decade old, so treat them as a picture of how the tent works, not a guide to this year's shelves.
The 2026 listing names Barbie, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Halo, Polly Pocket, Pokémon, Monster Truck, Masters of the Universe, Fisher-Price and American Girl among the brands on offer. The structure has never been a flimsy canopy. In the 2015 account it was a large, solidly built temporary building in the back parking lot, with electricity and heat, a warehouse-style floor, and crowds every year the writer went.
The tradition goes back at least two decades. That writer's first visit was in 2006, and he filed reports on the 2011 through 2014 sales before the 2015 piece. In 2015 the sale typically ran from Halloween until just before Christmas. This year it opened two weeks earlier.
The Start of the Cycle Now Has a Grand Avenue Address
Mattel was founded in Hawthorne and is an El Segundo company by choice. In September 1989, the Los Angeles Times reported that the toymaker was negotiating to buy an El Segundo office building to replace its aging Hawthorne headquarters, with a target move date of 1991. Mattel's corporate site now calls El Segundo its global headquarters and lists an on-site employee Toy Store.
The more recent change is where the toys get designed. In October 2024, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mattel's design center had been on Mariposa Avenue for more than three decades. Employees there design the hair, clothing and other parts of toys. Mattel bought the Grand + Nash building at 2160 E. Grand Ave. for $59 million and planned to move the center there in 2026. A project case study published this month by PLANNET, a building-technology consultant on the work, describes the HTC Design Center at 2160 E. Grand. It is a three-story, 165,000-square-foot facility built for roughly 600 to 650 employees, with labs on the ground floor, and it "now serves" Mattel's design and engineering teams.
So this season, the building where a doll's wardrobe is drawn and the tent where unsold dolls are marked down share a street. Their addresses are about two hundred numbers apart on East Grand.
The rest of the campus has changed as well. PLANNET's case study describes three more pieces:
- The tower at 333 Continental Blvd.: a 12-story, 265,860-square-foot workplace overhaul designed to increase seating capacity by 23 percent.
- The studio at 831 S. Douglas St.: a 60,000-square-foot production facility with sound stages, photo studios, editing suites and a VFX soundstage for brand content, plus a second phase that adds two 5,000-square-foot studios.
- A multi-phase warehouse facility, listed with the tower, design center and studio as part of the El Segundo campus program.
In 2024 the Times put Mattel's local workforce at roughly 2,000 people, on a hybrid schedule. The tent is the one part of all that real estate that is open to the whole town.
Two Stores, One Campus, Different Calendars
The year-round Mattel Toy Store and the holiday tent are separate operations, and the 2015 account treated them that way too. Here is how they compare this fall.
- Address. Mattel's official store page lists the store at 333 Continental Blvd. on the Global Headquarters campus. The tent's listed address is 1955 E. Grand Ave., behind the store. Follow the signs.
- Days. The store is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The tent keeps the same hours but only Thursday through Saturday. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, only the store is open.
- Season. The store is open all year and runs weekly specials. The tent closes December 19.
- Access. The store calls itself membership-based, but you don't need a membership to shop.
- Payment. The 2026 listing says the tent takes credit cards only. Leave the cash at home, and call the store at 310.252.3384 if you want to confirm before you go.
On the calendar, the tent has eight Thursday-to-Saturday weekends left as of October 29, ending Saturday, December 19. One of those Thursdays is Thanksgiving, November 26, and the published schedule doesn't list any holiday-week changes. A call to the store that week is the safest bet.
There's one more piece of Mattel's holiday program. The store page links to a 2026 Holiday Charity Catalog and order form. That program runs separately from the tent, so groups planning a toy drive should start with the catalog on Mattel's store page, not the sale floor.
Halloween Saturday, Grand to Main
This Saturday, October 31, is a tent day, and it lines up with the City of El Segundo's annual Halloween Frolic. The Frolic runs noon to 4 p.m. on the 300 and 400 blocks of Main Street, with bounce houses, arts and crafts, games, music and food. Wristbands have been on presale for $10 since October 5 at the Clubhouse and Joslyn Center. The tent opens at 10 a.m., two hours before the Frolic, and stays open an hour after it ends.
The drive between them runs along a stretch of Grand Avenue that has seen several changes in the past few months. Hello Gundo reported in its October 15 issue that Cocina Victorias, a new Mexican restaurant, has opened in the Chase Bank plaza at Grand and Main. Blaze Pizza opened in late August at Grand Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway, in the former T-Mobile space, according to the newsletter's August 27 issue. In September, Hello Gundo reported that the burger pop-up Spread, Please plans to move into a permanent spot in a Grand Avenue plaza, in space once held by QD's and Stix & Straws.
The Mattel tent fits the same pattern as those storefronts, just on a yearly schedule. It's set up each fall and stocked with whatever the toy year left behind. Its last day this year is Saturday, December 19.
If Mattel's expansion along Grand Avenue has you wondering what a large, growing employer means for your own El Segundo property, Lauren Forbes Group can walk you through the local picture in detail. Schedule a private consultation, and we'll start from the street you live on.