Sunday, August 2, 2026

Free Day at The Huntington Is Thursday — And the Tickets Are Almost Certainly Gone

[photo credit: The Huntington]

Admission is free on the first Thursday of every month, but only by advance reservation, and the August allotment was released July 30.

There is a version of Free Day at The Huntington that exists in the popular imagination — you wake up Thursday, decide to see the Japanese Garden, and walk in. That version has not been real for years.

Thursday, August 6 is Free Day, running from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino. Admission costs nothing. But it requires an advance reservation, and those reservations are released on the last Thursday of the preceding month at 9 a.m., which means the August 6 tickets went out July 30. The institution runs a virtual waiting room on release mornings, assigning arrivals a random place in line, and the allotment routinely disappears within minutes.

The rules are worth knowing for next month. There is a limit of five tickets per household per year. One email address and one order are permitted per household, and additional orders are subject to cancellation. Every guest needs a ticket, including infants. Tickets are valid only for the selected day, are non-transferable, and arrival is required within one hour of the ticketed time. Members cannot use Free Day tickets, though eligible members get upper-level early entry from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.

For those who get in, the 130-acre grounds hold more than a dozen themed gardens, a research library with rare books and manuscripts, and art collections spanning European and American work. Nonprofit groups arrange visits through an online request form; school groups email schoolprograms@huntington.org.

The September Free Day falls on September 3, with tickets releasing Thursday, August 27 at 9 a.m.

Free Day at The Huntington will run on Thursday, August 6 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino. For more information, call (626) 405-2100 or visit huntington.org/free-day. Admission is free. Advance reservation required.