diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.6.sh b/ci/requirements-3.6.sh
index f5c3dbf59a29d..4cdd8f90ec278 100644
--- a/ci/requirements-3.6.sh
+++ b/ci/requirements-3.6.sh
@@ -5,3 +5,5 @@ source activate pandas
 echo "[install 3.6 downstream deps]"
 
 conda install -n pandas -c conda-forge pandas-datareader xarray geopandas seaborn statsmodels scikit-learn dask
+
+conda install -c conda-forge/label/rc matplotlib -c conda-forge
diff --git a/ci/script_multi.sh b/ci/script_multi.sh
index 2b2d4d5488b91..18d328ab83788 100755
--- a/ci/script_multi.sh
+++ b/ci/script_multi.sh
@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ elif [ "$COVERAGE" ]; then
     pytest -s -n 2 -m "not single" --cov=pandas --cov-report xml:/tmp/cov-multiple.xml --junitxml=/tmp/multiple.xml --strict $TEST_ARGS pandas
 
 elif [ "$SLOW" ]; then
+    conda install -c conda-forge/label/rc matplotlib -c conda-forge
+
     TEST_ARGS="--only-slow --skip-network"
     echo pytest -r xX -m "not single and slow" -v --junitxml=/tmp/multiple.xml --strict $TEST_ARGS pandas
     pytest -r xX -m "not single and slow" -v --junitxml=/tmp/multiple.xml --strict $TEST_ARGS pandas