Museums Free For All returns this weekend to Los Angeles

In an effort to increase museum accessibility and close L.A. Arts Month, 25 Southern California area museums will waive their admission fees this weekend starting on January 31. This Saturday and Sunday four participating museums that are normally closed over the weekend will mark the return of SoCal Museums’ annual Museums Free For All.

Museums such as LACMA, MoCA, and The Getty Museum will grant free access to general admission exhibits. The event is in its tenth year, and will feature five more museums than last year.

The Free For All has recently experienced a rise in popularity and press coverage, mostly due to SoCal Museums’ and the Museum Marketing Roundtable’s use of social media to engage with the public. It’s part of the reason why the Santa Monica Museum of Art, a small museum with two viewing areas, can expect to welcome 800-1,000 visitors this Saturday according to Adrienne White, the museum’s Communications and Engagement Manager. “Our participation in this one day event really gets people’s attention,” she said about the number of visitors during the Free For All, in which the museum has participated since its beginning.

While some museums have designated days or times of day for free entry, such as LACMA, many of the participating museums already have free admission, like The Annenberg Space for Photography, SMMOA, and The Hammer Museum. For these locations, their participation is more of a gesture that highlights the need for smaller contemporary institutions like SMMOA to collaborate with larger cultural institutions. “When places like The Getty or LACMA work with smaller institutions it really amplifies our voice,” says White.

A full list of the participating museums can be found at www.socalmuseums.org.