Best Free Things To Do in Los Angeles This Weekend

The best free weekend in Los Angeles kicks off Friday, April 24, with a lineup that runs from baby goats on a craftsman lawn to late-night gallery access at the Hammer Museum.

Let’s start with Friday night, because it’s genuinely stacked. The Hammer Museum in Westwood throws open its doors for Arts Party: Forever, the annual takeover run by the Hammer Student Association exclusively for college students across Southern California. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the night pulls in live music, student-led workshops, and late-night access to the galleries under this year’s theme of the “continuum of culture.” Free admission. If you’ve never been to one of these, picture a museum after dark full of actual young people who want to be there. It works.

Also on Friday, OXY ARTS hosts Poets of Color Open Mic: Catch Our Words Like Stars, presented by Occidental College’s Intercultural Community Center. The evening celebrates National Poetry Month with a platform built specifically for Los Angeles-based femme and trans/non-binary poets of color, a crowd invited to, as the organizers put it, “catch words like stars.” Also free. Both events start at 7 p.m., so pick your neighborhood.

Saturday is where the weekend gets big.

Ivy Station brings out Pups and Putts, an 18-hole mini-golf pop-up installed directly on the central lawn. spcaLA will be on-site with adoptable dogs looking for homes. Runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., free admission, and less than half a mile from an L.A. Metro station, which means you have zero excuses not to go. Bring the kids. Bring yourself. Pet a dog.

Over in Old Pasadena, Jackalope sets up at Central Park for the weekend. If you haven’t hit this artisan market before, it’s one of the better ones in the region, the kind where you actually find things to buy instead of just walking past.

Then there’s Baby Goat Yoga at the Gamble House, and yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. Certified instructor and Gamble House docent Tina Lenert leads an all-levels session Saturday morning on the rear lawn of the historic Greene and Greene craftsman estate. Hello Critter Yoga hosts the event, and baby goats will wander through your sun salutations whether you’re ready or not. Tickets run $49.87, starting at 9 a.m. The Gamble House is one of the most significant pieces of Arts and Crafts architecture in the country, so even if you skip the goats, the weekend roundup is worth bookmarking for a self-guided visit.

The California African American Museum hosts a Langston Hughes Zine Workshop on Saturday, a hands-on making session tied to the exhibition A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West, which traces the poet’s time in California. Free admission. The California African American Museum sits at Exposition Park, which puts it right next to the City of STEM Festival and LA Maker Faire also running this weekend. Two stops, one parking situation.

CicLAvia takes over West L.A. on Sunday, opening streets to cyclists, walkers, and skaters the way only CicLAvia can. It’s the city at its most accessible, and if you haven’t done one since before the pandemic, April is the right time to come back. CicLAvia’s route map and details go live ahead of each event, so check before you load up the car rack.

And downtown, Fiesta Broadway fills the streets of DTLA with one of the largest Cinco de Mayo celebrations in the country, drawing hundreds of thousands of people across multiple stages and food vendors into the corridor.

“We see it every spring,” said one Ivy Station property rep, who told the Burbank Digest the Pups and Putts event draws repeat visitors specifically because spcaLA brings dogs that don’t always make it to traditional adoption fairs. “People come for the mini-golf and leave with an application.”

The sheer range this weekend is hard to argue with. Free zine-making at a museum, goat yoga at a National Historic Landmark, open streets cycling in West L.A., artisan markets in Pasadena, and a poetry open mic in Eagle Rock, all between April 24 and 26. Los Angeles doesn’t really do quiet spring weekends, and this one proves the point.