Some observations from trying to book some free tickets for the second May bank holiday weekend in 2026.
Sky Garden
The website says tickets are released 3 weeks in advance on the prior Monday (or Tuesday if the Monday is a bank holiday). Effectively this means you’re booking 3-4 weeks before the actual date (e.g. for Saturday 23rd May you book on Monday 27th April).
The website doesn’t give a specific time. Reports from 2024 give a 10am drop time, and an email in 2025 from the Sky Garden team refer to “after 11am”. On the Monday when I tried to book, the tickets became available some time between 11.45 and 11.55, so it seems a manual release rather than an automated, fixed time.
If you’re sitting on the booking page and occasionally clicking the “Select Date/Time” button until tickets become available, eventually the page gives a timeout warning and ultimately times out. However, it also sometimes seems to become slow to respond, in which case refreshing the browser page helps. (This might be the Cloudflare bot protection kicking in, or may be just my imagination.)
Tickets don’t go that quickly. There are 200 per 15-minute slot, and 2 hours after release there were still 150+ for many weekend slots. (Only the very earliest slot at 11am was sold out but 11.15am was still fine.)
Horizon 22
The website says tickets are released 2 weeks in advance on Mondays, but unlike Sky Garden it’s the two weeks from the Monday i.e. it’s only really 1-2 weeks in advance.
It’s slightly complicated because the booking page also shows availability of some paid tickets, which seem to be available 3 weeks in advance for some days, so it shows a few days as “sold out” even though they’re really not yet available. For example, the blue dates below are available, the black dates have paid tickets available, and so the orange dates are shown as “sold out” but really only become available the next Monday:
The website says tickets are released at 10am and that seems accurate.
Tickets go more quickly than Sky Garden but it’s not frantic, especially if you’re flexible with time. Four hours after release, there are still tickets for all days but times are very limited for some.
The Lookout
This is the most straightforward. The website says tickets are released 2 weeks in advance on Mondays, and like Horizon 22 it’s the two weeks starting on that Monday i.e. 1-2 weeks in advance of the day. Days are shown exactly as expected, with availability just for the free tickets.
The website says tickets are released at 10am and that seems accurate.
Tickets go more slowly than Horizon 22. Four hours after release, the only sold-out times are Friday evening and the first and last slots on the weekend.