Why Las Vegas might be the hottest family destination in America right now

(CNN) — Las Vegas has become known as a place where anything can happen, so it’s not surprising that a new attraction enables visitors of all ages to bring animal drawings to life.

It’s called the Live Sketchbook, and it’s one of several exhibits inside the ARTE Museum, an immersive digital art space in a hard-to-find corner of CityCenter on the Las Vegas Strip.

The Live Sketchbook experience is enthralling, and it typifies a new era of attractions in Las Vegas: Destinations designed for kids but built to be mind-bendingly cool enough for anyone.

Most of these new attractions spotlight technology and incorporate interactivity – two musts for the under-21 set. Add to the mix new entertainment offerings, a spate of live sports and a reinvestment in some of the classics, and Las Vegas might be more truly family-friendly than ever before.

Data suggests travelers are taking notice. According to statistics from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, roughly 16% of visitors to Las Vegas in 2023 came with someone younger than 21 in their group – roughly three times the number of families that came to Las Vegas before the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Families aren’t only coming because there’s more for kids to do; they’re coming because we now have all sorts of offerings that appeal to adults and kids alike,” said Steve Hill, CEO and president of the destination marketing organization.

“No destination has figured out how to evolve over time better than Las Vegas, and no aspect of our recent history demonstrates this better than our evolution into a great destination for families.”

Evolution of a destination

Consider the current era Family-Friendly Vegas 2.0. The first time Las Vegas tried to appeal to families, it didn’t go so well.

That was the 1990s, the start of the modern hotel boom. Resorts such as Luxor and Excalibur burst on the scene with vibrant and kid-friendly themes, and family travelers flocked to town to check them out. Many resorts also embraced family-oriented attractions: a theme park at MGM Grand, animal shows at The Mirage, a water park south of the Sahara, even a swashbuckling pirate show out in front of Treasure Island.

Critics at the time decried the destination for engineering a “Disneyfication.”

Gradually, however, the sin in Sin City won out. Many resorts doubled down on adult entertainment and expanded poker rooms . Animal habitats gave way to fancy restaurants and nightclubs. MGM Grand shuttered its theme park to expand the pool and meeting space. The fine dining scene up and down the Strip exploded.

Perhaps the best example of this change was that show in the front of Treasure Island. By 2003 the “Battle of Buccaneer Bay” had transformed into “Sirens of T.I.,” a lagniappe to lasciviousness.

Vegas stayed this way through 2017, until the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights joined the National Hockey League and professional sports started another pendulum swing.

Suddenly, with entire families coming into town to see the Knights, the destination had to pivot. With the arrival of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces in town a year later and the Las Vegas Raiders NFL team in 2020, casino companies recognized an even greater demand for all-ages attractions, and they had to keep up.

According to Brendan Bussmann, managing partner at B Global, a consulting firm that serves the gaming industry, the current era of Las Vegas has built upon the attraction of team sports to appeal to families with more activities that are interesting to all ages.

“The only way to grow a destination is to appeal to more groups,” he said. “We’ve managed to do a great job of that over the years. In this case, we simply did what we do best – we adapted, again.”

Technology is front-and-center

Many of the new family-friendly attractions attempt to appeal to the interests of younger audiences. One common thread: technology.

This is on full display at the ARTE Museum, where QR codes, pre-prepared 3D models and a process called UV mapping enable animals in the Live Sketchbook to come to life. Guests choose from coloring pages with outlines of deer, giraffes and other animals, and use crayons to personalize their creatures however they see fit. It’s a modern-day “Harold and the Purple Crayon” with all the wonder and none of the hijinks.

Once the images are ready, guests place their drawings under a scanner and behind-the-scenes animation software brings the beasts to life in a jungle setting projected on the walls.

Each creation takes a few laps before disappearing to make way for newcomers.

The museum, located at 63 CityCenter, has several other exhibits where digital art makes guests feel like they are stepping into one-of-a-kind natural worlds. In perhaps the most magical room, a mix of screens and projectors create the scene of a beach at night: virtual waves lap at a virtual shore while virtual Aurora Borealis twinkle overhead.

Parents and kids can choose to observe these phenomena quickly or sit and linger for a while.

Elsewhere on the Strip, different technologies provide more of a rush.

At the Electric Playhouse, for instance, in the Forum Shops at Caesars, motion sensors enable families to play life-sized video games using their bodies as controllers. One, a cross between soccer and air hockey, can accommodate up to 20 players; another, a variation on the game Cosmo Breaker, has players move a paddle by shuffling their feet.

Flyover, in a strip mall across from Park MGM, is more of a ride. The brainchild of Rick Rothschild, who created the Soarin’ flight motion experience at several Disney Parks, this attraction incorporates a concave dome screen, haptics such as mist and wind, and a row of seats that moves like a glider. Each “flight” revolves around a short film; as of publishing time, families could choose between films about Chicago, Iceland, the Canadian Rockies and the American West.

No mention of all-ages technology-powered attractions in Las Vegas would be complete without including The Sphere, the $2.3-billion entertainment venue that opened in the fall of 2023 as the largest spherical structure in the world.

This high-tech orb has grabbed headlines for concerts from bands such as U2 and Dead & Co. When those shows are dark, however, the 16K resolution wraparound interior LED screen is the canvas for “Postcard from Earth,” a 50-minute futuristic movie from director Darren Aronofsky.

Tickets to the movie include an hour-long experience in the lobby, where families can interact with robots who talk and educate guests about the state-of-the-art screen and super-sophisticated sound system.

Interactive fun

Interactivity is a trend among family-friendly attractions that have opened in Las Vegas in the last few years.

Without question, the best example of this is Particle Ink: House of Shattered Prisms.

By night, the attraction on the Atrium level of the Luxor is an ominous show where performers, puppets and computer-generated characters interact with the audience. By day, an all-ages experience titled “Wanderlust” offers an iPad-driven augmented-reality scavenger hunt, as well as a smoke ring cannon and a graffiti wall that kids can tag with virtual spray paint.

To the west of the Strip, at AREA 15, kids can participate in axe-throwing at Dueling Axes, and can zoom around a dual track suspended from the ceiling in an experience called Haley’s Comet. This latter ride is a mashup of ziplining and hang-gliding; guests who meet minimum height and weight requirements sit in slings controlled by electronic motors that can reach speeds of up to 7 miles per hour.

Of course, AREA 15 also is home to Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart, a wacky immersive art exhibit that starts in a grocery store and transitions into an alternate universe with tunnels, strobe lights and more. There’s also an interactive mystery that kids with hefty attention spans can solve.

Solving mysteries is also the objective of the family-friendly escape rooms around town. These attractions, commonly for participants 8 and older, task a group with solving enough puzzles to “escape” a room within a designated period. Most of the puzzles require clever thinking.

The Escape Game, at the Forum Shops, is one of the most popular, with six rooms in all; Escapology, at the Town Square mall south of the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, has 10. The scariest of the bunch, Escape IT, is based on the Stephen King book by the same name, and it has two separate experiences that incorporate live actors for extra fright. A new spot, Red Door Escape Room, was scheduled to open mid-September at the Grand Bazaar Shops; it will open with five different rooms and eventually will have seven.

Mini-golf has teed off in Las Vegas during recent years and has become incredibly popular among families as well. Popstroke, part-owned by Tiger Woods and adjacent to Town Square, opened in April and features two 18-hole mini-golf putting courses, a full-service bar and a restaurant. The Twilight Zone by Monster Mini Golf inside Horseshoe Las Vegas has an 18-hole course with zany obstacles under eerie black lights.

There’s even a competitive (they call it “social”) darts attraction that welcomes kids: Flight Club, inside the Grand Canal Shoppes at Venetian Las Vegas, allows youngsters 12 and up until 5 p.m.

Oldies but goodies

In addition to all these newfangled attractions, several classic family-friendly experiences and entertainment options in Las Vegas still have some serious cache among guests of all ages.

With its beach, wave pool and lazy river, the pool complex at Mandalay Bay is still considered tops for families. The Big Apple Coaster at New York-New York Hotel & Casino still gets up to 67 mph, and still goes from inside to outside and back again. Toward the other end of the Strip, at the Strat, the 1,149-foot Observation Tower is still home to two adrenaline-pumping rides: Big Shot, which shoots guests 160 feet into the air; and X-Scream, a roller coaster that teeter-totters over the edge.

For a more subdued vibe, all three minus5 Ice Experience locations (Mandalay Bay, the Venetian and the LINQ Promenade) offer family pricing before 9 p.m., affording kids 7 and older the chance to don a parka, gloves and a ski hat, grab a mocktail in a glass made of ice and hang out in a room with sculptures and furniture composed entirely of frozen water.

A handful of the O.G. family-friendly shows are just as good as ever, too. Excalibur’s Tournament of Kings, a campy medieval dinner theater with horses, has a perfect amount of kitsch for kids, including the rule that everybody eats with their hands. O, the Cirque du Soleil show at Bellagio, incorporates synchronized swimmers and underwater acrobatics and marvels audiences of all ages every night.

Finally, the No. 1 old-school family-friendly attraction in Las Vegas is the High Roller observation wheel. At 550 feet, this remains the tallest observation wheel in the world.

The wheel comprises 28 enclosed pods, making it extra safe for kids. One revolution takes exactly 30 minutes, giving younger travelers plenty of time to get acquainted with the mind-bending views of the Las Vegas Valley.  As each pod nears the top, a pre-recorded voiceover counts down backwards from 10 to the moment of apex. The experience plays out like New Year’s Eve every time; in true Vegas style, it’s a party for everyone in the family.

What’s next

The new era of family-friendly Vegas isn’t slowing down any time soon. In addition to glorious family-friendly pools at new resorts such as Resorts World Las Vegas and Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the destination is gearing up for more family-oriented attractions in the years ahead.

The closest to fruition: Universal Horror Unleashed, a year-round horror attraction from Universal Destinations & Experiences, the theme park unit of NBCUniversal.

This facility is under construction and is expected to open adjacent to AREA 15 in 2025.

Also on the horizon is professional baseball. The Oakland Athletics announced plans to move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season, and the Tropicana Las Vegas soon will be imploded to create a site on which the city hopes to erect a new ballpark.

Las Vegans like to joke that the Nevada state flower is the orange construction cone. When it comes to family-friendly attractions in and around town, the larger the bloom, the better.

Matt Villano is a writer and editor based in Northern California. He has covered Las Vegas for more than 25 years.

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