Glenstone Museum is getting into the after-hours game. The Potomac museum will stay open late on Saturdays in September for music, nature walks, and beer.

The 200,000-square-foot private art museum in Montgomery County is hosting free after-hours programming for five September Saturdays. The museum normally closes at 5 p.m., but it will remain open three hours later, until 8 p.m., on Sept. 2, Sept. 9, Sept. 16, Sept. 23, and Sept. 30.

The after-hours programming will be centered around Glenstone’s exhibit about the seven-decade-long career of the late abstract artist Ellsworth Kelly. The artist’s most well-known work is Yellow Curve, a floor-based painting of a circle slice that runs 25 feet along its radius.

“Ellsworth Kelly at 100” celebrating the artist’s centennial birthday, opened in May and will be on display until March 2024.

Each Saturday evening in September, there will be a 5 p.m. nature walk highlighting Kelly’s love of nature and a 6:30 p.m. curatorial discussion about Yellow Curve. Live Latin jazz will play on the patio, and wine and beer from local breweries Elder Pine Brewery and Silver Branch Brewery will also be available for purchase.

Glenstone follows many other museums around the region that are activating their spaces at night, including the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, the Library of Congress, and the National Building Museum, among others.

Like the museum itself, tickets for Glenstone’s September Saturdays are free and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Glenstone has thus far eschewed the lottery system other museums have recently started using for their after-hours events.

The museum released a “small number of tickets” on Tuesday, and those were quickly reserved, museum officials tell DCist/WAMU. But additional tickets will be made available on Friday, Sept. 1 at 10 a.m. for all dates, and at noon on the Monday prior to each Saturday in September.

Glenstone also has a “Guaranteed Entry” program where all students 12 years and old, educators, museum professionals, active-duty military, veterans, and those that arrive via the Ride On bus can walk into the museum without a reservation.

A museum official says the “Guaranteed Entry” program will also apply to the Saturdays in September. The latest entrance to the after-hours event for all attendees will be 6:15 p.m.

This isn’t the first time the museum has extended its hours in its five years of being open to the public. As a museum spokesperson put it, the aim with Saturdays in September is to “welcome more visitors and increase access to the museum.”

Glenstone Museum dates back to 2006, but it expanded dramatically in 2018 after a $200 million project that included new pavilions, and new sculptures and artworks installed on the grounds. The free private art museum was co-founded by billionaires Emily Wei Rales and Mitchell Rales (now also part owners of the Washington Commanders) and sits on 230 acres of land, much of it wooded.

The museum has remained wildly popular since it became accessible to all a half-decade ago and continues to be one of the toughest tickets to get in town.