I believe that Museum Educators should constantly be on the prowl for new inspiration to keep our work fresh. Though it may not be thought of as the most education-rich area of the United States, I find Las Vegas to be one of the most sensory-rich and captivating locations for finding new ideas. For the past five years I’ve attended EXHIBITOR, a conference dedicated trade show exhibitors. Exhibition design in museums was born out of great exhibition design from trade shows and World’s Fairs, and the exhibition hall for this conference is one of the best places to find cutting edge technology and design used for communication and education. While in LV, I also toured some of my favorite spots and tried out some new adventures. Here’s just a sampling:
I wrote a whole blog post about finding a Brahma Shrine at Caesar’s Palace. Himalayan ideas are everywhere!
While at Caesar’s Palace, I stopped into the Forum Shops (one of the coolest malls ever). This H&M used to be a giant FAO Schwartz, with a life-sized toy Trojan Horse. Even though there’s no longer a horse, the retail design for this store was truly inspiring – especially the flying mannequins.
These towers at City Center are wonders of architecture. The colors are fantastic, and made me think about progress, the future, and energy.
I spend a lot of time at City Center, a massive hotel, retail and residential mini-city of tomorrow settled in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip. Dale Chihuly has a gallery there, and I love this bowl. Orange with neon green lining!
This was a great low-tech exhibit at Exhibitor. For three days an artist continued to work on this large white-board and dry erase marker mural. He was drawing a fantastical exhibition space, and made me re-think white boards as a space for art.
A new product popular at Exhibitor: Micro Tiles. This photo doesn’t do this display justice, but both of these surfaces are made up many small squares of digital displays. Media designers have the ability to create incredible dynamic presentations with these, and the resolution is fantastic.
Back on the LV Strip… if the Rubin Museum were a Casino, it would probably be the Aria Resort– the fixtures in this Casino made me feel at home, and everything was perfectly executed. Check out this giant copper wall, marble floor, sandstone lobby!
The Cosmopolitan Casino is the new kid on the Las Vegas Strip. If you live in NY, and watch TV, you’ve probably seen a commercial for this place (A little bit sweet, a little bit naughty- puppies and kittens…electric guitar riffs). I was alerted to a ridiculously cool media display in their lobby. Giant seamless plasma display columns situated in a mirrored room. The displays showcased artful media installations and were constantly moving. Totally worth checking out, but you have to hunt for the lobby (it’s super far from the entrance on the strip).There’s a bar across from the installation with all the seats facing towards the displays, so the architects took great pains to ensure a quality visitor (if not drunken) experience.
Back at Exhibitor, Best of Show (Large Booth) winner Blue Telescope had a great exhibit that showcased new movement technology for booth attractions (think: Wii/PS Move/Xbox Connect, but for visitors to an exhibition). Their harmony themed exhibition let me play music with my body, virtual dj (Minority Report Style) and play in a game show using remote iPads. 
One of my last, but favorite finds at the Exhibitor show was a 3D modeling company that can take any 2D image and make it into a relief sculpture. This is a great, affordable way to make accessible exhibitions for visitors who are blind or have low vision.
