Riverside County, CA Noise Ordinances: Outdoor Music (2026)

Riverside County treats live music as a special sound source under Section 6(d) of Ordinance No. 847, the same provision covering sound amplifying equipment. The rule is twofold: live music (and amplified sound) is prohibited between 10:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m., and at any other time it must not be audible to the human ear more than two hundred (200) feet from the equipment or music. This applies to backyard parties, outdoor venues, weddings and similar events in the unincorporated communities. The 200-foot audibility standard is in addition to the general property-line dBA limits in Table 1, so a daytime outdoor concert can still violate the ordinance if it is loud enough to exceed the receiving property's dBA cap (for example, 55 dBA at a residence). Section 6(d) makes clear that these requirements control over any conflicting conditions of approval in an underlying land use permit. For organized or recurring events, Section 7 provides an exception path: a single-event exception is decided by the Planning Director without a hearing, while a continuous-events exception goes to a public hearing before the Planning Commission, with appeal to the Board of Supervisors. Public and private schools and school-sponsored activities, and certain agricultural and governmental activities, are exempt under Section 2.