The sprawling art installation known as Hospital of Emotions is opening a door it had kept shut since debuting inside the former St. Vincent Medical Center: the basement. A new add-on called Below: The Basement Experience sends ticket holders into subterranean rooms that were previously closed off to visitors, and some time slots are already sold out.
Hospital of Emotions has occupied the shuttered medical center a few blocks north of MacArthur Park since it debuted in May 2026, according to NBC Los Angeles. The exhibition spans 80 rooms across four floors, with works from more than 70 artists, per the event's own FAQ page. Altogether it fills roughly 45,000 square feet of the historic building, as detailed by See Great Art.
Below: The Basement Experience is a 30-minute, Halloween-inspired walk through the hospital's old underground rooms, the station reports. The creative team behind it describes the space as containing abandoned labs, old medical equipment, records, specimens and other remnants of past lives, the same report notes. It's a stark contrast to the self-guided main exhibition, where the FAQ page notes there is no guided tour by design, letting visitors move through at their own pace.
Timed Tickets, Some Already Gone
Below runs on select nights through Halloween and costs $43 per person, according to the NBC Los Angeles report. Tickets are timed, and the station notes that some slots have already sold out. During evening Below events, all 80 art-filled rooms of the main exhibition stay open as well, though gallery access requires a separate ticket from the basement experience, per the same account.
Guests looking for a fuller night can also add Hospital of Emotions After Dark, which the report describes as the regular exhibition dressed up with ambient lighting and roving actors after hours. Visitors may encounter unusual characters and seasonal moments while wandering the hallways and smaller spaces, the station adds. A bundled ticket combining Below and After Dark is available for those who want both, the report notes, and Below and the bundled ticket are restricted to guests age 12 and older, with all attendees required to sign a waiver, according to the event's After Dark page.
A Los Angeles Times newsletter review placed Below alongside the city's bigger haunts, noting it isn't as viscerally gory as Dark Harbor or Haunted Hayride but reads as more artistic. The Times also confirmed that the basement ticket, while sold separately, can be purchased in a bundle with admission to the main exhibition.
A Hospital's Second Act, Twice Over
Hospital of Emotions has become a major draw for art fans, people who enjoy whimsical expression and visitors simply curious about the former hospital's transformation, per NBC Los Angeles. The show was originally slated to close in late July but extended its run due to popular demand, the Times newsletter reported. See Great Art separately reported that the exhibition's Los Angeles run was extended through September 30, 2026.
Beyond the art, the building itself has a longer transformation ahead. St. Vincent Medical Center is slated to become the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus, a project expected to provide more than 300 inpatient behavioral health beds and over 100 outpatient treatment slots, according to the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus. That redevelopment is planned to be completed in phases between April and November 2027, the campus programs page states.
For now, the century-old medical center is still doing double duty as a canvas for roughly 70 artists and a haunted-season attraction drawing crowds into rooms that once held patients, labs and records. With timed basement slots selling out and the Halloween deadline approaching, organizers haven't said how much longer Below will remain part of the experience.
