How to Actually Get Into The Broad, Because the Tickets Are the Whole Game

The art is amazing, the building a landmark, but what determines how a day at The Broad Los Angeles turns out is whether you grasped the reservation process before heading downtown. This article takes access first, then art, which flips the usual guide structure.

The Broad museum opened in 2015 on Grand Avenue as the creation of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad to showcase their contemporary art collection and make it freely accessible to the public. Ten years later, The Broad Los Angeles ranks as one of the most visited contemporary art museums in the US.

The Broad Free Tickets and the System That Works

I will be explicit, because this is where it goes wrong for most people. Admission is free – always, for everyone. The Broad free tickets are available to reserve online in advance.

There are two ways to enter The Broad museum. You can reserve the Broad free tickets in advance, the secure route and the one I would use. Otherwise you stand in a standby line on the day of your visit, which works fine but costs you time outside and no guarantee of entry. The Broad tickets for general entry are never sold but only reserved, and the Broad tickets to ticketed exhibitions cost money.

The Broad Location and Getting to Downtown Los Angeles

The Broad address is 221 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, on Bunker Hill. That places The Broad LA next door to MOCA Grand Avenue and across from Walt Disney Concert Hall, which is the densest cultural zone in Los Angeles.

Getting there is easy by transit. The nearest Metro stop is a short walk away, and the location of The Broad in Los Angeles makes it close to Grand Central Market, the Music Center and Grand Park – build a downtown visit around The Broad and walk out from there.

The Broad Parking and the Underneath Garage

The Broad parking happens at the museum’s own underground parking garage, entered from Second and Hope Streets. Rates for visitors to The Broad in Los Angeles who park in the garage come in around eighteen to twenty dollars for a typical visit.

If you prefer to park in lots and walk a few blocks, Bunker Hill has cheaper options. Evening rates downtown are lower after business hours. The Broad parking lot tends to fill on Saturday afternoons and at night when there is a concert hall performance, so an early arrival helps.

The Broad Hours and Time of Day

The Broad hours run from Tuesday to Sunday, with the museum closed on Mondays. Opening times are late morning, with closing in early evening, extended into the evening at the weekend. The Broad evening hours in the week are overlooked.

Since The Broad hours cram visitors into the middle of the day, the first hour after opening and the final two hours before closing are noticeably quieter. For anyone who wants to photograph the building or the Infinity Mirror Room at The Broad in Los Angeles without the crowd following, go with a weekday morning visit. Two hours cover the exhibition comfortably.

The Interior – the Veil and the Vault

Some attention to the building architecture is required. The concept used to design the building was called ‘the veil and the vault’ – a transparent honeycomb shell that allows the natural light to filter into the building, surrounding the opaque concrete core that holds the storage.

Visitors ride an escalator up through the concrete core into the third-floor galleries, and that is one of the best moments in museum choreography. On the descent, a viewing window into the storage opens for you. The building is what attracts the visitors to The Broad in Los Angeles, and why it photographs so well on Grand Avenue.

The Broad Infinity Mirror Room and Access to It

And now the question everyone asks. Entry to the Broad infinity mirror room, the Yayoi Kusama mirrored installation, is handled separately from general entry, and the room is the single most requested experience in the museum.

Access to the Broad infinity mirror room is managed through a same-day sign-up via the museum app once you are in the building, with a limited time slot per group. Do it immediately after arriving at the Broad rather than after wandering the galleries, because slots fill quickly. The experience itself is just under a minute long, and you will understand why once you are in it.

The Art of The Broad Collection

Beyond Kusama, the collection is an almost exhaustive list of postwar and contemporary art – Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kara Walker, Barbara Kruger, Takashi Murakami. The Broad houses over two thousand art works, with the third-floor installation regularly changing.

The special exhibitions take place on the first floor of the museum, and these exhibitions sometimes cost money. Scale of each work is a part of the attraction here – this is a collection of photogenic and large pieces, and that explains the broad appeal of the museum.

The Broad Events Schedule and Programs

The Broad events include artist talks, performance, film screening, music nights and summer outdoor programming. The non-object(ive), the performance program of The Broad, has included some truly unexpected artists.

The majority of Broad events require separate ticketing and some sell out immediately, so the events schedule is worth paying attention to. The evening programs also offer a completely different building view – the honeycomb shell glowing from the inside in the downtown skyline setting.

Reviews of The Broad Museum

The Broad reviews are consistently positive, and three main themes emerge – the free admission, the Kusama room and the architecture. Visitors are repeatedly amazed by the free admission policy of the museum.

The honest feedback in The Broad reviews is all about logistics. Queues on the weekends. The Infinity Mirror Room sign-up surprise. And the fact that a thorough visit takes about two hours and disappoints those who traveled from far to spend a full day.

As a two-hour contemporary art experience in a walkable downtown, it consistently delivers.

The Broad Day Extension and What Happens Next

This museum is conveniently located as a stop in a great cultural cluster. Next to it there is MOCA. Across the street is Walt Disney Concert Hall. Downhill is Grand Park. Walkable south of it are Grand Central Market and the Last Bookstore.

But now the pattern emerges. Everyone stood in a line, queued, looked at art. Children got tired of contemporary art. Adults got enough of white walls. Downtown is right there with a whole evening left and no wish for passivity.

The Transition From Passive Viewing to Interactive Experience

This is the point where we can help you. We run escape rooms across LA at six different locations and more than twenty private rooms. Two of our spots – Vermont Avenue and Highland locations – are reachable by car from downtown Los Angeles.

The swing is what we provide. Gallery experience is a passive one, where you take somebody else’s imagination at arm’s length. Escape room experience is the opposite one – your group inside a created world, an Egyptian tomb or an underwater research station or a Victorian mystery, sixty minutes on the clock, every person needed. Kusama gives you a minute of art inside her installation. We give you an hour inside one and with a lock on the door.

The Reason to End a Grand Avenue Day With Our Escape Rooms

Because the escape room format is suited to whomever came to the downtown area with you. Date night – a free museum and a private room for two is one of the best value evenings in Los Angeles. Families – Temple of Lost Gold at our Robertson location is set so that a nine-year-old solves puzzles. Birthdays – we hide a gift inside the escape room for the birthday person to find mid-game, and we have a reception area for outside food, so the cake comes with the escape. Corporate team building – half-day and full-day experiences that beat any conference room, and downtown offices book them all the time.

Every booking is private, your group alone, no strangers. The prices start around $37 a person. We are open daily 10AM to 11PM, the hours no museum beats. Whenever Grand Avenue releases you into the evening, you have room available. Five-star reviews on Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor are the result of years of creating sets and stories carefully – the same seriousness with which ‘the veil and the vault’ was built, except you get to tear the story apart.

 

Our Locations & Rooms

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