Visiting Lucas Museum’s Free Park and Gardens in Exposition Park

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opened on Sept. 22, 2026. Most of the coverage has been about the $25 galleries. The grounds outside are free. The Park & Gardens, the store, the café and Skywalker Grill can all be visited without a museum ticket, and the gardens are open from 8 a.m. to sunset.

There is one condition. The museum says guests without timed tickets or restaurant reservations "may enter as capacity allows," and that access "may be limited or temporarily paused at busy times." The museum's campus shares Exposition Park with the Coliseum, BMO Stadium, the South Lawn concert site and a Science Center that opens a major new wing on Nov. 13. For the free version of this museum, picking the right day matters more than anything else.

A Parking Lot Became a Sculpture Garden

The museum describes its site as a 13-acre campus. The gardens were designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA. The Daily News called the grounds 11 acres, which likely reflects a different boundary, so the two figures shouldn't be read as the same measurement. Before construction, this was an asphalt parking lot. Today it has a hanging garden, an amphitheater, a meadow and a fountain designed to look like a waterfall. More than 300 new trees were planted, including jacarandas, oaks and pines, among native and drought-tolerant plants. The museum also points to shaded gathering areas.

The building is part of the garden too. Ma Yansong's design touches the ground at only a few points and creates a covered central plaza under a 185-foot arch. An oval opening four stories up looks straight through to the sky. You can stand under it without a ticket.

Ten large outdoor sculptures line the accessible walkways. The museum treats them as an outdoor extension of its galleries:

• Fernando Botero, Maternity
• Antonin Mercié, David After the Combat
• Mark Newman, Padmé Fights Off Nexu
• Mark Newman and Giovanni Nakpil, Princess Leia Frees Herself from Jabba the Hutt
• Lawrence Noble, The Introduction, a bronze of Yoda and Grogu
• Lawrence Noble, Eadweard Muybridge with Camera
• Lawrence Noble, Willis O'Brien, honoring the stop-motion artist behind King Kong
• Prune Nourry, selections from Terracotta Daughters
• Lucy Topete, Emiliano Zapata en Cuernavaca
• Benjamin Victor, Rosie the Riveter

You can walk the whole set without going inside. Families can do a Star Wars outing for free: Padmé, Leia, and Yoda with Grogu are all outdoors, near a Botero and a late 19th-century bronze by Mercié.

The Two Hours Before the Doors Open

The museum's capacity clause has the least effect early in the day. The gardens open at 8 a.m. The galleries open later every day, so the first visitors on the grounds don't have timed tickets.

The Sunday hours differ between the museum's Plan Your Visit page and its Hours and Location page, so check before you go. On weekdays you get about two hours with the sculptures before the galleries open. Skywalker Grill opens at 11:30 a.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. on weekends, and the café opens at 11 a.m. on weekdays.

Opening week showed why the timing matters. The Los Angeles Times reported that the campus filled to capacity and that there was a long line for a selfie with R2-D2. The Daily News described a sold-out crowd in the galleries, park and gardens. None of the opening-week stories we reviewed reported that no-ticket entry was actually paused. For now the pause is a stated policy, not something visitors have run into.

The Neighbors' Calendar Is Also the Garden's Calendar

On busy days, the problem usually isn't the gate. It's parking. Exposition Park lists $20 daily parking and a $24 minimum for special-event and after-hours parking. On event days, payment may be due upfront, it is nonrefundable, and there is no in-and-out access. On USC game days, the Coliseum says Exposition Park lots are permit-only with no cash lots. It also says most traffic is limited to right turns, with left-turn pockets closed. The museum's own Red Lot, under the campus off Bill Robertson Lane, may be unavailable or limited through the end of the year.

Here is what is scheduled in Exposition Park over the next two months, as listed by the venues and the park:

Most of these events start in the late afternoon or evening, and the gardens close at sunset. A weekday morning usually doesn't overlap with any of them. Some weekdays still reach into garden hours. The Oct. 14 LAFC match is on a Wednesday, and its South Coliseum Drive closure starts five hours before kickoff, which puts it in the middle of the afternoon. The three USC Saturdays are the hardest. This Saturday, Oct. 3, is the first one, and the Natural History Museum is already warning visitors about street closures and suggesting the E Line. Oct. 24 is also crowded, with an Angel City fan fest starting at 1:30 p.m. and a concert on the South Lawn the same night.

November 13 Adds a Second Big Attraction

The calendar gets fuller in mid-November. The California Science Center has scheduled the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center to open on Nov. 13, 2026. It will be the permanent home of Space Shuttle Endeavour, shown upright in launch position. The 200,000-square-foot expansion nearly doubles the Science Center's exhibit space. General admission to the Science Center is free. Because of expected demand, the new center will require timed reservations. Exposition Park's calendar marks Nov. 14 and 15 as opening weekend. That same week, the Natural History Museum runs NightTales from Nov. 12 to 15, with timed entry and up to 2,000 guests a night.

So the most crowded weekend of the fall is set to begin about seven weeks after the Lucas opened. All three museums, a Science Center opening and a shared set of parking structures will be busy at once. On a visit during the weeks before that, the gardens mostly compete with the Lucas's own ticket holders.

Arriving Without a Garage

Transit gets you past the parking problem. The closest rail stop is the E Line's Expo/Vermont station at Exposition Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. The Metro Local 204 stops at Vermont/39th, next to the museum. Metro estimates about a seven-minute walk from Expo/Vermont and lists a $1.75 one-way fare. You can pay with a contactless card, TAP or Apple Wallet. There are public gates on Vermont Avenue and on Bill Robertson Lane.

The Exposition Park Rose Garden is open daily from 8:30 a.m. to dusk, so you can pair it with the Lucas gardens on the same morning. It closes every year from Jan. 1 to March 15 for maintenance, so October and November are a good time to see both. The museum's Research Library is free to all visitors and opens at 10 a.m.

If you live in the 90037 ZIP code, the LM37 pass gives you and one guest free museum admission, plus invitations to special programs. You register online, show proof of address on your first visit and still book a timed entry. The museum set aside a dedicated allocation of LM37 tickets for opening and beyond. It has not announced plans to extend eligibility to other ZIP codes. The LM37 pass is for museum admission; the outdoor grounds, including the meadow, are free to visit.

The Lucas gardens changed what this part of Exposition Park is like on an ordinary weekday morning. If you're curious how new public spaces like this affect day-to-day life on the blocks around them, Karean Wrightson would be glad to talk it through. Request a Complimentary Market Consultation.