When the Museum of Ice Cream opened at AREA15 earlier this month, it arrived with an easy-to-understand sales pitch: unlimited ice cream, giant slides, colorful photo opportunities and enough interactive attractions to keep families busy for hours.
I’ve now visited the massive destination twice, and it delivers on all of those things and more. But they’re not just there for the kids. I’ve been surprised and impressed by the speed with which adults — and even teenagers — gradually stop acting their age once they’ve written their new “ice cream name” on their name tag and entered the museum.
A Work Of Art
That reaction is exactly what co-founder and CEO Manish Vora hoped to create. While the attraction includes plenty of information about ice cream, he says the word “museum” refers less to history than to an immersive work of art designed to encourage participation.
“The museum is interactivity, it’s participation, it’s play,” Vora told the Food and Loathing podcast. “It’s really designed as a series of icebreakers to let you participate in experiences that you haven’t tapped into since you were a kid.”
Located in AREA15’s Zone 2, the 30,000-square-foot attraction is the largest Museum of Ice Cream location to date. In addition to plenty of free candy jewelry and what the company calls the world’s largest all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet, it includes over a dozen playful installations.
Visitors can wander through themed rooms, race down five slides, try on costumes, make friendship bracelets in the Little Pink Chapel, “gamble” in a family-friendly Cone-sino, receive a rub-on tattoo, and eventually dive into the attraction’s signature Sprinkle Pool. And it’s all within an easy walk of the free ice cream, soft-serve and help-yourself toppings.
Everyone’s A Kid Here
The concept was clearly built primarily for young children. But my recent return visit suggested the appeal extends further than that.
One member of our group had just turned 18. It’s an age when enthusiasm can sometimes be replaced by carefully cultivated indifference, making it hard to predict what he’ll actually enjoy. So I was happy to see him sampling ice cream, trying mocktails at the bar, playing miniature golf, placing “bets” on ice cream roulette, making friendship bracelets and flying down the museum’s corkscrew slide alongside both kids and adults.
He may not have been the target audience, but he was clearly having fun.
Local Partners
The ice cream itself isn’t an afterthought. Museum of Ice Cream partnered with several local companies, including the Vegas-born social media sensation Sorry, Not Sorry Creamery, whose flavors will rotate throughout the year.
“They wanted us to feature some of our cool, unique flavors,” explained Sorry, Not Sorry founder Drew Belcher. “And we couldn’t say no.”
Vora explained that partnerships with companies like Belcher’s as well as local institutions like the Vegas Golden Knights and the Circa resort are intentional. Rather than creating a static attraction, he wants returning visitors to constantly find new flavors, new collaborations and new reasons to come back.
“This is just the launch,” he said. “We’re going to continue to evolve and try new flavors and new concepts.”
Museum of Ice Cream probably isn’t trying to compete with Las Vegas’ best ice cream shops or its biggest thrill rides. Instead, it occupies a space somewhere between interactive art installation and dessert destination. For families, groups of friends or adults willing to embrace their inner 10-year-old for an afternoon, it’s an unexpectedly charming way to spend a few hours — with plenty of sprinkles along the way.
