What you need to know about Las Vegas’ children’s museum
Matisse Camoin watched as her 2-year-old son Mykah places a ball into a shoot repeatedly and giggles as it gets whisked away.
“He’s been playing this for like, two hours,” said Camoin, who took her child to the Discovery Children’s Museum on a recent Tuesday afternoon.
Camoin likes to take her little one to the museum to get his energy out and socialize with other young children, and she’s seen the benefits.
“He’s more persistent in trying new things after we started coming here. I think it helps him learn,” said Camoin. “With a Capri Sun, he’ll sit there and put the straw in the hole over and over, when before he’d just cry and hand it to me.”
Founded in 1990, the Discovery Children’s Museum mission is: “to ignite a lifelong love of learning by fostering a welcoming, vibrant, and inclusive environment where all are invited to engage in playful and educational experiences.”
When Melissa Kaiser took over as CEO of the museum in 2017, Heather Harmon, the now executive director of the soon-to-be-built Las Vegas Art Museum, told her something that stayed with her.
“She said: ‘This organization is a treasure. If you hold it, you have to hold it carefully and nurture it and not let it drop,” said Kaiser. “This is such a precious gem of this community.”
Through two different locations, multiple different exhibits and over 250,000 visitors each year, the Las Vegas’ Children’s Museum remains a world class stop for locals and tourists alike.
History
The idea of a children’s museum in Las Vegas was the brainchild of two different organizations: the Allied Arts Council of Southern Nevada and the Junior League of Nevada. Coincidentally, both had the same idea, at the same time around the late ‘80s and decided to join forces to create what locals knew as the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum.
It started off small, with a pilot museum of sorts in the Fashion Show Mall to gauge interest and introduce the community to a hands-on museum. The Fashion Show Mall exhibit became a traveling demonstration across the city for two years, and then caught the attention of Charles Huntsberger, the then-director of Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.
Huntsberger has a vision for the library to be not just a place for books, but a community space. When a bond issue was floated and approved in 1988, the museum finally had a home alongside a new centrally located library.
Now with a building came the topic of funding, to which the Lied Foundation took the reins. Christina Hixson, the executor of the Lied Foundation — named after Las Vegas businessman Ernst Lied — gave a generous $2 million donation, which then supplied the name “Lied” to the front of the museum name.
Antoine Predock was chosen as the architect for the project, with the major task of putting Las Vegas on the map as a destination for a children’s museum. Predock dreamed up the now iconic cones, sharp lines and conical shaped party room.
On Sept. 9, 1990, the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum opened as tenants of the Las Vegas Library to the enjoyment of children and adults. It was located at 833 N. Las Vegas Blvd. near Cashman Center.
The museum was home to current exhibits and some defunct: like the ever-popular Water World, the shadow box, a children’s-scale village, the color effect wheel and ice cream demonstrations.
After around 20 years of life at the old location, the museum had outgrown the space entirely and started to see attendance drop off as tenants of a public library.
“Its location was affecting visitorship,” said Kaiser. “There was also the promise that this was going to be the arts corridor, and it was going to have gentrification that we were contributing towards, and there was a lot of homelessness there.”
New Location
So, when plans for the Smith Center were coming to fruition in 2010, the children’s museum became a part of it. The entirety of the center was funded by a $485 million donation from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, to which the children’s museum became tenants (however, exhibits are not funded by the donation).
“The agreement was certain things would be covered, and the Smith Center would be the landlord,” said Kaiser. “We uphold our part of tenantship and keeping a safe facility and organization, and then we’re benefited by the gift that Reynolds made to the Smith Center.”
Then on March 9, 2013, the new location had its grand opening as the Discovery Children’s Museum. The new location opened at 360 Promenade Place with 60,000 square feet, 26,000 square feet of it museum space, three floors, a rooftop, some of their all-star exhibits and new classics.
The museum takes special care to keep all children in mind during development, redevelopment and expansion. For example, the museum is fully bilingual in English and Spanish, as well as having sensory spaces for children with special needs and accessibility features for children using mobility aids.
The exhibits include Toddler Town, Fantasy Festival, Eco City, Young at Art, Patents Pending, Discovery Lab, the under-construction Water World and the newest exhibit Energy/Energia. Kaiser has seen and hear of many special moments at the museum, like when children say their first word or take their first steps in Toddler Town or special moments between siblings.
“We had a visitor the other day who was in a wheelchair with her sister, and the mom was like ‘thank you, because I can’t find a lot of things for them to do together, because one is able bodied and the other one isn’t, and you allowed these siblings to have so much fun playing together like that,” Kaiser said.
Anchoring the whole museum together is The Summit, a 12-story climbing structure that ascends all three stories of the museum, which will be getting a major $4 million lift within the next two years.
“The goal is to create a climber that represents the natural world with our designs called ‘Desert to the Stars,’” said Kaiser. “I imagine it as this beautiful garden of Eden.”
The climber will showcase the desert landscape, flora and fauna, camping, star gazing and petroglyphs, mirroring that of Nevada’s surroundings.
The museum is still in the planning stages and hopes to have 80 percent of its $4 million goal before breaking ground.
Donations and low admission costs
When Camoin paid for admission, they asked if she would round-up to support the museum. She happily obliged.
“They are a nonprofit, everything goes back to the museum,” said Camoin. “I think it’s really good to support, not only local businesses but also nonprofits whereas, they’re trying to do something for the community.”
On the same day Camoin visited, four different elementary schools were there as well.
Entrance fees at Discovery Children’s Museum are lower than the average museum trip: $20 admissions for non-locals, $14.50 for locals and $95 for an adult and child yearly membership. Additionally, the museum offers $5 tickets for patrons with a valid EBT, SNAP or WIC card through their Museums for All admissions.
“It was like 90,000 visitors that we had never seen before, trusting us and coming into our space,” said Kaiser of the Museums for All admission cost.
These low admission costs are intentional, but only with the help of donations, donors and grants.
“If you’re not charging your visitor, you have to look to fundraising,” said Kaiser, who took a major stance on fundraising when she took over as CEO.
Kaiser comes from a fundraising background working at fine art museums in Philadelphia before she moved to Las Vegas, saying her knowledge of fundraising was her “gift to give.”
Fundraising and grants from the community help support all facets of the museum, from new exhibits, upkeep and staff wages. Their grant funded initiative Discovery on Wheels allows for the museum to attend schools for free and continue their mission.
“We’re not just a museum where we want people to come, we are out in the community,” said Kaiser. “We should be very proud. Las Vegas should be proud of the Children’s Museum it has here.”
Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @EmersonDrewes on X.