How to See The Broad’s Infinity Mirrors without a Reservation
You may have seen them on Instagram, Yayoi Kusama's beautiful Infinity Mirror Rooms that make you feel like you’re in another world.
Well when Katelyn was in Los Angeles for the LA CoMotion Conference and Mobility Festival this month, she knew she had to go see it at The Broad!
Katelyn peering into Longing for Eternity through a porthole (Yayoi Kusama, 2017)
There are two of Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Rooms currently on view at The Broad. One is more of a box you peer into through a porthole, called Longing for Eternity, but the other is a room you enter for an immersive experience, which is called The Souls of Millions of Lightyears Away.
Katelyn inside The Souls of Millions of Lightyears Away (Yayoi Kusama, 2014)
To see The Souls of Millions of Lightyears Away, The Broad insists that you will need an advanced reservations. These reservations are typically booked weeks in advanced, especially during the weekends. So unless you are good at planning ahead, you more than likely won’t get a reservation.
However what they don’t tell you is that they do allow walk in guests, usually in the morning, without an advanced reservation.
Here’s how it works:
1. Arrive at The Broad Before it Opens
The earlier you arrive the better. Your chances at getting a walk-in reservation are higher in the morning when the museum first opens, rather than once it fills up and gets hectic.
2. Get in the Onsite Standby Line
When you arrive at the museum, you will see a secondary line outside labeled onsite standby. This line will be for people without reservations to get into the museum (still for free). The closer to the front, the faster you’ll get in the more more likely it is that you will be able to get into the infinity mirror room.
3. Sign In at the IPad Kiosk
Once the museum opens, enter into the lobby and head towards the gift shop where you will see a small iPad kiosk. Here you can sign up for a walk-up reservation. You put in your name and cell phone number You’ll receive a text when it’s your turn.
4. Enjoy The Broad While You Wait
Take a look around The Broad, which has a beautiful contemporary art collection. You can also take this opportunity to view Longing for Eternity.
5. Report to the Mirror Room When You Get the Text
Once there is time between reservations, you will receive a text that gives you s few minutes to get to the special exhibition area. Here you will get in a short line of about a dozen people who were also texted at the same time.
6. Experience the Infinity Mirror Room
When it is your turn, you can choose to experience the room alone or with someone you are in line with. Despite how many of you that are in the room, you will be limited to 45 seconds inside before the museum staff will open the door for the next person in line. So hurry!
So how did this work for us? Katelyn and her friend she was traveling with got in line about an hour before the museum opened on a Saturday with coffee and breakfast. We were first in line for standby. Once the museum opened, everyone with a reservation was allowed in and then about 15 minute after the doors opened a small handful of standby people were let in. We went right to the kiosk and signed in, in which we were told our wait time was an hour. We headed off into the museum and after about 25 minutes we received our text that it was our turn. We hurried down to the first floor and there were only a small handful of people ahead of us in line. Soon it was our turn (we went in solo). In total we were inside the museum for less than an hour and got to see the infinity mirror room without a reservation!