Each October, more than 250 destinations across the city open their doors for three days of behind-the-scenes access.
Will you be among them?
Open House New York Weekend is a five-borough festival that helps people understand why the city looks, feels, and functions the way it does. Attended by more than 30,000 people—including New Yorkers from 84% of the city’s zip codes—the festival is a celebration of design, culture, and civic investment.
Festival partners open doors to skyscrapers and subway tunnels and everything in between, and they lead tours and activities that explore projects and ideas that define New York and its future. If you have expertise about a space more New Yorkers should know about, send us your place or tour idea to [email protected].
Share your space or project
There are many ways you can become a partner:
- Unlock the doors to places not usually open to the public for at least 4-hours or 75-100 people
- Lead tours or develop a self-guided tour to share your perspective and expertise.
- Host an activity—a performance, a kids workshop, or something else.
An administrative fee of $250* (discounted to $75 for nonprofits, $0 for government agencies) provides partners with:
- Promotional campaigns that reach more than 300,000 people and receive significant press coverage. Each activity gets its own listing on our website.
- Volunteers ready to help with crowd-control (managing lines, greeting attendees, blocking off-limit areas) and collect attendance data.
- Ticketing services if your space has significant capacity or security restrictions. If a tour is ticketed, we’ll send you the guest list days before the event.
*Our fee should not be a barrier to your participation. Request a waiver if you need one.
Key milestones
- October: OHNY Weekend; 2025 dates to be announced
- July: Registration deadline
- August: Additional partners considered on a case-by-case basis
- September: Press preview
Become a partner
Ready to sign up? Send us your place or tour idea to [email protected]
Looking for sponsorship opportunities? Email Alison Pirie at [email protected]
Case Studies
Design and Construction: Perelman Performing Arts Center
To celebrate the opening of the final public element of the World Trade Center site, tours for 150 people were offered. Members of the design and construction teams at REX, Rockwell Group, Tillotson Design Associates, and Sciame each led one tour to speak about their contribution to the project.
Behind-the-Scenes: Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum
To give Open House New Yorkers a special look into the Intrepid, the museum led tours of their aircraft restoration hangar. Two members of the restoration team took visitors into their workshop and spoke about their restoration process. Four 1-hour tours were offered for 25 guests each.
Open Access: Brooklyn Army Terminal
The former Army supply base, now an industrial park operated by NYCEDC, opened to the public for drop-in visits. First-come, first-serve guided tours of the main atrium were offered on the hour. Self-guided tour materials also were available for festival visitors to explore the location on their own, at their own pace.
Partner FAQs
How can I participate in OHNY Weekend?
There are many ways you can become a partner. Here are a few examples:
- Open the doors to places in New York City that are not usually open to the public—entire buildings or select significant areas—for at least 4 hours or 75-100 people.
- Lead tours or develop self-guided tour materials to share your perspective and expertise on a space’s history and design.
- Host an activity—a performance, exhibition, a kids workshop, or something else that encourages people to experience a place in a new way.
How are partners and locations selected?
We look for experiences that reflect the festival’s mission to celebrate design, culture, and civic investment; provide special access to people and places that define New York and its future; and help people understand why the city looks, feels, and functions the way it does. To spotlight new projects and voices, 60% of the lineup is reserved for new partners, locations, and activities. We also consider geographic distribution and building typology to ensure the festival lineup reflects the city’s diversity. Additionally, locations must be able to accommodate 75+ visitors or offer access for 4+ hours.
My building is already open to the public. Can I still participate?
Yes. When this is the case, we require that partners provide access to spaces that are not usually open to the public or host special activities that highlight the site’s significance to New York’s culture, architecture, or future. You could have designers, historians, or other experts to answer visitor questions about the space, develop a special self-guided tour, or something similar.
What are the deadlines for becoming a partner?
The preferred deadline for registration is July 2025. Submit your registration by this date to be considered for inclusion in all promotional campaigns and press releases.
How do I register?
If you are interested in participating in the 2025 festival, send us your location or tour idea to [email protected]. If your idea is a good fit for this year’s festival, you’ll receive a link to our registration form in the spring, where you will: submit location and tour descriptions; confirm dates, times, and tour details; share accessibility information; submit photos; and request volunteers. We’ll also need a liability waiver and payment of the registration fee.
Will I know who’s coming?
Each festival location will have one of two access levels—Open Access and Ticketed. Our team is happy to help you decide between the two types.
- Open Access locations open their doors during one or more festival days and for at least one 4-hour window. Visitors drop in during open hours without reservations. If you are looking for the greatest exposure and foot traffic, Open Access is the best option. Most festival locations are Open Access.
- Select locations are Ticketed for space and security reasons. Access is at set times, and groups are sized to suit the site’s needs, but we ask partners to try and accommodate at least 75-100 visitors over multiple tours. Open House New York manages all ticketing, and we charge $6 per ticket to discourage no-shows. A guest list is shared with partners days before the festival.
How many visitors can I expect?
It depends on whether your location is Open Access or Ticketed.
- Some Open Access locations receive 50-100 visitors, while others get 1,000+ visitors. Variables include day (Saturday and Sunday attract the biggest and most diverse audiences), access to public transit, and the number of nearby festival locations, to name a few.
- Group sizes on Ticketed tours are predetermined. In most cases, the ideal group size is 20-30 people. Our team is happy to help you rightsize tours for your location. We ask partners to try and accommodate at least 75-100 visitors in total (i.e., three tours of 25, five tours of 20, etc.) If you can provide more tours and accommodate more than 100 visitors, even better! Note that activities for children cannot be Ticketed and must offer Open Access.
Can my location be Open Access if we have capacity limitations? What if a line forms?
Our volunteers can form and manage lines when necessary and implement a one-in-one-out policy. In advance of the festival, please consider where you would ask visitors to line up once your location reaches capacity. If you’re unsure about line placement and management, our team can visit the location before the festival and provide recommendations.
How are activities ticketed?
If your location requires ticketing, we’ll manage the entire ticketing process for you. Depending on anticipated demand, tickets will be distributed via lottery or reservations. To discourage no-shows, tickets are $6 per person. A final guest list for each tour will be sent to you days before the event. If someone contacts you about getting on the list for a tour, direct them to our website.
How are festival activities promoted?
The festival is an opportunity for high visibility for our partners. Our promotional campaigns reach more than 300,000 people. Each location gets its own listing in our digital festival guide with a description, photo, links, and more. Festival partners and locations are included in extensive press and marketing campaigns and pitches to local and national news outlets and publications. We send weekly updates to our mailing list (61k subscribers) and publish social media posts daily (83k followers). Expect to receive a promotional kit with festival logos, graphics, sample social media posts, and posters to be displayed at your location that you can use for your own promotion.
What additional assistance do you provide?
Open House New York is a public programming expert. We excel at creating impactful experiences and finding creative ways of filling venues. We get as many people in the door as our partners feel comfortable welcoming.
- Members of our team have 10+ festival editions under their belts. If you’re unsure how to prepare for the festival, don’t hesitate to contact us.
- We recruit and train 1,000+ volunteers to help partners with visitor management and check-ins on the event day. Most sites request two volunteers in four-hour shifts. We can advise you if you are unsure how many volunteers you need.
How can volunteers assist at my building or on my tour?
Festival volunteers are trained to assist with keeping visitors in designated areas, ensuring that tours have no stragglers and people stay with the group, managing lines to limit the number of people in a location at one time, greeting guests and passing out printed material, and checking-in visitors as they arrive. If you don’t request any volunteers, you should be prepared to manage visitors and also collect attendance numbers, specifically so that you can submit final data to us after the event. Note that our volunteers cannot fully replace your staff and are not there to act as professional security guards or provide tours.
Volunteers are generally assigned to four-hour shifts: 10:00 am-2:00 pm, 12:00-4:00 pm, and/or 2:00-6:00 pm. We ask that sites align their hours with one or more of these time blocks to facilitate efficient volunteer coordination.
What is the fee to become a partner?
An administrative fee of $250 helps ensure that we can provide you with robust promotion of your activities, trained volunteers, and ticketing services, all while keeping the festival free or affordable for participants. Nonprofit partners receive a discounted rate of $75, and the fee is waived for government agencies. Please note that our fee should not be a barrier to your participation, and we encourage you to request a fee waiver if needed. Our fee should never discourage or prevent a partner from participating in Open House New York Weekend.
May I charge admission to my building, program, or tour?
No. Partners must provide free access to festival participants. If you normally charge an entrance fee, you are required to waive it for festival participants.
What about liability and insurance issues?
Open House New York does not assume liability for any injuries to site visitors or to employees, tenants, or guests of site/program owners or for theft, damage, or loss to personal or real property that may occur during Open House New York Weekend. Site hosts (owners, tenants, lessees, tour/workshop operators, or organizations) are responsible for carrying adequate insurance and will be asked to sign a waiver releasing Open House New York from all such liability. We strongly recommend that sites and tours that extend participant involvement beyond walking, i.e., any activity that requires safety precautions, such as a helmet, hard hat, or life jacket, require each participant to sign a waiver, which you supply.
Can you give me a checklist?
We’re here to help! As a starting point, all partners should be sure to:
- Communicate with your client or building management to inform them of your intent to participate in the festival, including obtaining the necessary permission for public access
- Email [email protected] as soon as possible to introduce your location or tour idea
- Submit a registration form by July
- Pay the $250 administrative fee ($75 for non-profits; $0 if waived)
- Sign our liability waiver
- Promote your participation to your network (i.e., on your website, event listings, newsletters, and social media, etc) using the assets we provide
- Prepare your staff to manage visitors and any facility needs on the date of your event. Our volunteers can provide additional assistance (in a limited capacity).
- Display and distribute Open House New York Weekend collateral on-site during the event. Our volunteers can help collect attendance data
- Provide feedback by completing a partner survey after the festival