Best Free Things To Do in Los Angeles This Weekend

The Hammer Museum in Westwood opens its doors Friday, April 24, for Arts Party: Forever, one of the better free nights Los Angeles offers college students all year.

The annual event is organized by the Hammer Student Association and draws students from across Southern California. Doors open at 7 p.m. This year’s theme is “continuum of culture,” and the night includes live music, student-led workshops, and late-night gallery access. It’s a genuine museum takeover, not a sanitized version of one. Free admission.

Friday night doesn’t stop there. OXY ARTS, the arts program at Occidental College, is hosting Poets of Color Open Mic: Catch Our Words Like Stars starting at 7 p.m. at the Intercultural Community Center. The reading is presented in recognition of National Poetry Month and centers femme and trans and non-binary poets of color based in Los Angeles. Organizers framed the invitation simply: come “catch words like stars.” Also free. Both events run at the same hour, so your Friday choice comes down to which part of the city you’re already in.

Saturday opens wide. Ivy Station is running Pups and Putts from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., an 18-hole mini-golf pop-up installed on the central lawn. spcaLA brings adoptable dogs on-site. Free admission, and the venue sits less than half a mile from an L.A. Metro stop. “We see it every spring,” said one organizer about turnout patterns at these kinds of community events. “People come for the mini-golf and leave with an application.” It’s hard to argue with that outcome.

The Gamble House in Old Pasadena runs Baby Goat Yoga Saturday morning starting at 9 a.m. on the rear lawn of the historic Greene and Greene estate. Instructor and Gamble House docent Tina Lenert leads the all-levels session. Hello Critter Yoga hosts. Baby goats don’t wait for cues. Tickets are $49.87. The Gamble House is one of the most significant Arts and Crafts structures in the country, so even if yoga with wandering animals isn’t your thing, the weekend roundup links directly to details worth reading before you drive out there.

Also on Saturday, the California African American Museum at Exposition Park is running a Langston Hughes Zine Workshop tied to its current exhibition, A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West. The show examines Hughes’s years in California, and the workshop gives attendees a hands-on way into that material. Free admission. Exposition Park puts you within walking distance of the City of STEM Festival and LA Maker Faire, both running the same weekend. That’s three distinct destinations sharing one parking situation, which is either a good problem or a bad one depending on how early you arrive.

Jackalope opens at Central Park in Old Pasadena for the full weekend, running through Sunday, April 26. It’s an artisan market with enough vendors to warrant actual browsing rather than one quick loop. The kind of market where you don’t show up knowing what you’ll buy. That’s the point.

CicLAvia is also running this weekend across the city. Check CicLAvia’s route map and details before you plan your route, because the street closures affect driving logistics across several neighborhoods.

Friday’s events run April 24. Saturday events span most of the day, from the 9 a.m. goat yoga at the Gamble House through the 11 a.m. Ivy Station pop-up and the Zine Workshop at the California African American Museum. Jackalope continues Sunday. For a full listing of what’s happening across Los Angeles the weekend of April 24 through 26, 2026, the complete roundup is at the weekend roundup.

Most of it’s free. Plan accordingly.