Grab your friends and Gogh!
‣ Hi there, happy Saturday! I hope you are all doing well. This week, I went to the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit in San Francisco. This summer, the pop-up exhibit will be in 19 cities in the United States as well as Dubai and Toronto. In this blog post, I’ll be telling you about my experience so you know what to expect.
What is the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit?
The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit, designed and conceived by Massimilano Siccardi, is a pop-up installation in which you can “lose yourself in 300,000 cubic feet of flawless projections animating Vincent van Gogh’s oeuvre,” according to the website. You are immersed in Van Gogh’s works, from Starry Night to Sunflowers, while an accompanying soundtrack by Luca Longobardi plays in the background. All in all, it makes for a stunning, dramatic digital art exhibit.
What is Immersive Yoga?
Immersive Yoga, sponsored by Lifeway Foods, is a “unique wellness experience featuring yoga and mindfulness sessions in the immersive art installation space,” as described by the website. It is a 35-minute class led by a yoga instructor in the immersive exhibit. After the class, you can stay and experience the show one more time. Participants must be at least 12 years old, and there is a maximum of 45 people per class. You must bring your own yoga mat. I checked the websites of all the other Immersive Van Gogh locations, and this opportunity appears to be available only in San Francisco and Chicago!
Schedule, Availability, & Cost
Exhibit
Tickets for the normal exhibit are available every day, every hour on the hour. There are a variety of ticket options, including VIP tickets, Premium tickets, and Basic tickets. You can read about the perks of each ticket here, but essentially, the Premium and VIP tickets come with special souvenirs.
There are also Flex tickets and Timed tickets, which vary in their flexibility of your arrival. (The arrival window for Flex tickets is +/- 2 hours of your scheduled time, while the arrival window for Timed tickets is +/- 20 minutes of your scheduled time).
Children ages 6-16 are $24.99 plus taxes and fees, regardless of when you go.
The cheapest tickets, the Basic Timed tickets, are $39.99 plus taxes and fees. The most expensive tickets, the VIP Flex tickets, are $99.99 plus taxes and fees. So, take your pick!
The exhibit will be in San Francisco until September 6th. Looking at the calendar, there are lots of tickets available in August and September but limited availability most days in July.
Immersive Yoga
Yoga classes are available on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8:45AM and Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:45AM. The price per ticket is $54.99, plus taxes and fees. For two tickets, we paid around $120.
The classes will be held until September 5th, but note that only 45 people can attend each class, so they may fill up. I believe that the yoga classes are a very recent addition to the exhibit (I think it was first offered this week!) so keep this in mind—it may get more popular as the summer goes on, people recommend it to their friends, etc.
My Experience
This week, I participated in the Immersive Yoga Class, and I really enjoyed it. I went on Thursday, and the class started promptly at 8:45AM. I only started doing yoga regularly this summer, so I don’t know much about the specifics of a “good” practice, but I thought that the instructor was very knowledgable and that the class was enjoyable! I loved being able to see the beautiful art and truly take in my surroundings.
The pros of the yoga experience, in my opinion, are:
- You get to go in for your class before the exhibit opens to the general public. As a result, we didn’t have to wait in any line! When we left, we saw a line forming for security outside.
- The class is limited in capacity, so there are fewer people around. When I went, there were only around 15 people in the room! This meant that, after the practice, we had lots of space to watch the show without others obstructing the view and to take photos without photobombers.
- I think that doing yoga helped me appreciate the exhibit even more—for 35 minutes, I could focus on the displays and my breathing instead of constantly reaching for my phone.
The main con of the experience is that you are only allowed to stay for one more showing of the exhibit. To clarify, the videos play on a loop that is around 30 minutes long. After the practice, we were allowed to see the show one more time, then we were kindly asked to leave so that they could open the exhibit to the 10:00AM ticket holders. I would have loved to see the show a couple more times to fully absorb everything, but I thought that the benefits (yoga, not many people in the exhibit, no lines) outweighed this.
The yoga class is more expensive than the Basic Timed ticket but the same price as the Basic Flex ticket. The Basic Timed tickets seem to be harder to find—I think they sell out first—so I thought that it was worth it, comparatively, in that regard as well.
At the end, we were given a sample of the Lifeway Kefir mango drink. (It has dairy, so I could not drink it). I also got a sticker, and a staff member took a photo of my friend and me at their special photo frame station.
If you like yoga and want to see the exhibit, I definitely recommend purchasing tickets to this class!
What Else is On Site?
In addition to the exhibition room, the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit has:
- Bathrooms in two locations (before you enter the exhibit and after you exit)
- A gift shop with lots of Van Gogh-themed souvenirs and merchandise
- A cafe (I didn’t go, but see below for a photo of the menu)
Location & Parking
The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit is located at 10 S. Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94103. It is very centrally located, near San Francisco City Hall and the Asian Art Museum. This means that it is accessible by public transportation! If you are taking BART, it is an 8-minute walk from the Civic Center station.
If you decide to drive (which is what we did), you can try to find street parking or park in a garage nearby. When I went, I parked on Grove Street. The Performing Arts Garage, located at 360 Grove St., is only a few blocks away from the exhibit and costs $2/hour, so that is another great option.
Final Thoughts
I had a lot of fun at the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit! I loved the visuals and the music—it made for an incredible sensory experience. The yoga class was definitely a cherry on top for me.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post and that you found it helpful! Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you know when something new comes out, and you can follow my Instagram (@youngnwanderlust) too if you want 🙂
Have a great weekend!
