The measurement of acoustic pressure at a point in space using optical methods has been the subject of extensive research in airborne acoustics over the last four decades. The main driver is to reliably establish the acoustic pascal, thus allowing the calibration of microphones with standard and non-standard dimensions to be realized in an absolute and direct manner. However, the research work so far has mostly been limited to standing wave tubes. This Letter reports on the development of an optical system capable of measuring acoustic particle velocities in free-field conditions; agreement within less than 0.6 dB was obtained with standard microphone measurements during these initial experiments.